Book Description:

Max Moran reluctantly attends a Halloween party at the Congressional Hotel. When he has too much to drink – which is only a couple of glasses of champagne for Max – he goes off to the hotel library, where he promptly falls asleep. He is awakened by a woman dressed as a gypsy who insists on telling his fortune. She catches his undivided attention when she tells him that his lifeline may be about to run out. She also warns him that a mysterious man will soon come into his life, and he should be particularly respectful of this individual. When just such a strange man shows up that night but promptly disappears the following morning, Max finds himself attempting to solve a case involving kidnapping, a missing artwork, and a murder that took place forty years ago. These events combine with Max’s involvement in what he believes to be the worst show he has ever been in – a musical based on the last days of Vincent van Gogh – to make his life both dangerous and stressful.