The Carvings on the Spine

By Scaredy Ghost

BLURB / SYNOPSIS A locked room steeped in the scent of poison. A trail of serial murders marked by deadly wisteria petals. A blood-soaked secret buried in the abyss four years ago. Four years ago, the merchant ship St. Jude sank off the isolated cliffside. Seventy-one souls were swallowed by the ocean, leaving only five noble survivors. Dividing a massive insurance fortune among themselves, they returned as symbols of miraculous luck and wealth. Until Thorne Valerius—one of the five—is found dead in his private study, his face contorted in sheer agony. Resting on his lips is a single purple wisteria petal inscribed with the letter "T". Thalessa Ashwood, a cold and fiercely rational forensic scholar, armed with an unfinished letter and her case of surgical scalpels, arrives at the Peninsula Manor where the remaining four survivors have entrenched themselves. The moment she steps across the threshold, a massive avalanche destroys the sole mountain pass, trapping the manor in a violent blizzard. At the same time, Roderick Thorne—the ruthless "bloodhound" of the Royal Investigation Department—lurks in the shadows with a cocked revolver, hunting the financial conspiracy behind the long-buried tragedy. On the first night, the power fails. Madness-driven knocking echoes from behind the locked doors of the study. When the heavy oak door is breached, the second corpse is revealed alongside a petal stamped with "S". T... S... ST. JUDE. Trapped in an inescapable mansion where every survivor harbors dark paranoia, Thalessa and Roderick must follow the dried bloodstains to answer the ultimate question: Is the killer a vengeful ghost from the depths of the sea, or a monster hiding among them? Genre: Gothic Mystery / Locked-Room Thriller / Historical Procedural Suspense