Jake and Ellie are taking a break from perfecting their chocolate pizza recipe to cater a housewarming party hosted by movie icon Ingrid Merryfield. Miss Merryfield is famous for her old-Hollywood glamour. Her new home, Cliff House, has a reputation too--for being haunted. But she isn't concerned, and some of her guests even try to summon a spirit during the party, using a Ouija board. What arrives instead is a freak autumn storm that downs an ancient tree, trapping everyone on the property and setting the stage for a killer's planned spree.

Though Jake and Ellie don't intend to get stirred into the mix, there's no avoiding it--especially when they witness one of the guests being shoved over the very precipice that gave Cliff House its forbidding name.

Jake and Ellie begin sifting through suspects and motives, a search that takes them from a long-lost family graveyard to a wise old herbalist's deceptively-sweet cottage and finally to Cliff House's overgrown gardens. Is there some ghostly presence involved--or a flesh-and-blood villain? And either way, can they ensure that they avoid meeting their very own, very permanent Hollywood ending?