David Randall is a lively, carefree fellow with a talent for finding things whose perfect family life is derailed when he loses his little daughter Lindsey in a car crash. ?He is haunted by her in dreams, fearful she blames him. Thrown out by his second wife and wanting to leave a dead-end detective agency to start his own, he reluctantly accepts his psychic friend Camden's invitation to stay in Camden's boarding house, 302 Grace Street, in Parkland, North Carolina.?Here he meets Kary Ingram, the lovely young woman who'll become the love of his life, Ellin Belton, Camden's intensely ambitious girlfriend, and an ever-changing assortment of Camden's tenants, all searching for a home and family.
Randall's only clue to the murder of Albert Bennett is a notebook filled with odd musical notation.?When his client, Melanie Gentry, hires him to prove her great-grandmother was murdered by her lover, John Burrows Ashford, over authorship of “Patchwork Melodies,” Randall sets out to find a connection to Bennett's murder, as well as the murder of a Smithsonian director, who was preparing a new PBS documentary on early American music.
When Randall's investigations lead him to another notebook, he finds not only “Two Hearts Singing,” John Ashford's most famous song, but a valuable early copy of Stephen Foster's “Oh! Susanna,” hidden in the cover. Things become even more complicated when Ashford's spirit parks himself in Cam and refuses to leave until Randall proves Ashford's innocence.
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