Review: One Night in Drake Mansion

One Night in Drake Mansion by Channing Whitaker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First in the Skeptic Detective Series, our protagonist is Ph.D. candidate Harlan Holt, a member of Science, Magicians, Skeptics Foundation and anthropology graduate student. Harlan is an endearing and personable young man with a scientific frame of mind. Together with a young woman about to enter medical school, an aspiring actress, a paranormal investigator and a medium, he spends one night in a mansion abandoned for 80 years after the disappearances of all five of the family plus a well-known magician.


Between spooky occurrences and the unfolding of a historical megalomania, the reader is kept engrossed. Perhaps best is the ongoing balance between Science, as represented by skeptic Harlan, and paranormal believers, in the psychic medium and the paranormal investigator. The denouement is stunning.

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