Footprints on the Ceiling

A sleuthing magician investigates an allegedly haunted house on an island off Manhattan—and uncovers a murder.

“Wanted To Rent: Haunted House, preferably in rundown condition. Must be adequately supplied with interesting ghost.”

Ross Harte knows that only the Great Merlini could be behind such a strange classified ad. A magician, salesman, and occasional sleuth, Merlini is producing radio investigations of paranormal activity, and he needs ghosts to put on-air. His first target is Skelton Island, an eerie speck of land just a few hundred feet off the coast of Manhattan, but seemingly out of another time.

On a late-night trip to the island, Merlini and Harte find the house perfectly rundown and well stocked with ghosts, including one fresh one. Linda Skelton, granddaughter of the famous Scourge of Wall Street, has been poisoned with cyanide. Unless Merlini works quickly, he and Ross will join her among the ranks of Skelton Island’s famous spirits.

Reprinted for the first time this century, Footprints on the Ceiling is a brilliant puzzle mystery and the second of Clayton Rawson’s novels featuring the Great Merlini. This edition features a new introduction by Tom Mead, author of the Joseph Spector Locked Room Mystery series.

[A] wonderful wizard of crime.”
― Eleanor Sullivan, editor, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Clayton Rawson (1906–1971) was a novelist, editor, and magician. He is best known for creating the Great Merlini, an illusionist and amateur sleuth introduced in Death from a Top Hat (1938). Rawson followed the character through three more novels, concluding the series with No Coffin for the Corpse (1942). In 1941 and 1943 he published the short-story collections Death out of Thin Air and Death from Nowhere, starring Don Diavolo, an escape artist introduced in the Merlini series.

See more titles by Clayton Rawson.

Introduction by Tom Mead.