A young woman is found strangled in Mingo House, a morbid brownstone museum in Boston’s Back Bay. Strangely, she was dressed in Victorian finery as if for high tea. Dubbed the “Victorian Girl” by the media, she becomes the focus of publicity and speculation that reaches back to the Mingoes’ roots in England and to the builders of the mansion, a Civil War arms dealer and his séance-holding wife.
Boston comic Mark Winslow and the other trustees of Mingo House are divided as to whether the place is sustainable as a museum. Trustee chairman Rudy Schmitz, a brash entrepreneur, seems convinced that the porous roof and escalating rain damage will doom the place. Nadia Gulbenkian, the last of the old guard trustees, is accusing Rudy of engineering the museum’s demise. Meanwhile, software executive Jon Kim and a dubious collector of saints’ bones and art are pursuing their own agendas.
Mingo House itself seems cursed. A number of people believe its walls conceal treasure, and are will do anything to retrieve it.
As the deaths and threats multiply, one question resounds: which will survive this summer of deluge—Mingo House or its terrified staff?