'I came here to make a dead man change his mind.' So begins a creepy and unusual mystery celebrated to this day as one of the greatest 'impossible crime' novels of all time. When a family's promise to protect the beloved pine grove of their dead father creates a financial strain, a seance is suggested to summon the ghost of the late logger and ask its permission. A mixed group of skeptics and believers convene at a snow-bound lodge to call the spirit with a group that includes a gambler, a businessman, a clairvoyant, a professor, and a refugee, among others. With so many diverse interests at the table, the tensions run high -- but when one of the participants ends up dead, there is reason to suspect that a nefarious spirit is to blame. The body is discovered in a locked room, impenetrable from the outside -- just one of many bizarre and inexplicable circumstances surrounding the scene of the crime. There is also the trail of footprints in the snow, beginning and ending amid a field of
