Diagnosis Murder

The Hotel Camdenton is a fictious place fashioned after some of the dozens of actual "haunted" hotels in America. Because haunted claims are based on folklore, ghost stories, and guest experiences rather than a scientific standard, organizations like Historic Hotels of America officially track and curate lists featuring top historic properties known for their resident spirits rather than an absolute national total.

Since this is a mystery story and not a horror story, the protagonist is a female reporter turned book author. If the book sells well, the author plans to write a series based on the main character's experiences.

The road up to the Bessemer Hotel in Camdenton, Missouri, switched back on itself so many times that Jo Calloway stopped trying to guess which direction she was facing. Limestone bluffs crowded the shoulder, furred with cedar, and every third curve gave her another glimpse of the town below: white frame houses stacked up the hillside like something poured rather than built, roofs catching the late October light in a way that made the whole place look slightly unreal, a diorama someone had left out in the rain and let warp.

She had photographed forty-one haunted hotels in fourteen months. She had learned to recognize the moment, on every one of those roads, when a place stopped being a pin on a map and became a weight in her chest, not fear exactly. Anticipation with a cold edge to it. She felt it now, coming around the bend below White Street, when the Bessemer Hotel appeared above the tree line: four stories of gray stone and deep porches, a tower at the corner, the whole building sitting on top of Caution Mountain like it had grown there instead of being built.