The Fat Lady's Ghost

Nineteen-year-old Corin Johansen, a practical and ambitious art student, leaves her hometown of Proctor's Crossing, Pennsylvania, to attend a prestigious art school in Boston. At her new boardinghouse, she encounters her larger-than-life landlady, Madame Despau-Davy, a former circus performer known as Daring Dina who once trained lions and leopards and now teaches tricks to her four pet ocelots. The boardinghouse kitchen is said to be haunted by the ghost of Rosie Garside, a circus performer known as the Fat Lady and Dina's former friend. Though skeptical, Corin experiences an unsettling sense of being watched while cooking. She attracts the attention of two male boarders: Jack Banks, a playboy, and Alex Bodmin, a talented but reserved art student. When Corin discovers hidden jewelry in the kitchen and learns the true circumstances of Rosie's death, she begins to suspect that one of the boarders may be a jewel thief—and possibly responsible for a murder.