The Sleeping and the Dead: A Mystery

A new mystery series starring a Memphis crime scene photographer with ghostly assistance

Jackie Lyons, a former vice detective with the Memphis Police Department, is trying to put her life back together. Her husband has served her with divorce papers, she's broke, and her apartment has just gone up in flmaes. But a failed marriage, unemployment, and an incinerated home aren't her only problems: she also sees ghosts.

Since Jackie left her job with the MPD, she's been making ends meet by photographing crime scenes for her old friends on the force, and for the occasional collector. When she's called to the murder scene of the Playhouse Killer's latest victim, she starts seeing crime scenes from a different perspective-- her new camera captures spectral images. As her camera brings her ghostly visitors into sharper relief, it also points her toward clues the ex-detective in her won't let go: Did the man she has just started dating kill his wife? Is the Playhouse Killer someone in her inner circle?

As Jackie works to separate natural from supernatural, friend from foe, and light from dark, the spirit world and her own difficult past become the only things she can depend on to solve the case.

© 2025 Minotaur Books (Ebook): 9781250014818

Release date

Ebook: 16 October 2025