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A fraudulent fortune teller, a society divorcee, and a spirited prostitute caught up in a story of insanity, ambition, and murder in turn-of-the-century Duluth

Please don’t mistake this story for a murder mystery, May Martin warns us as she settles in to tell her tale. The mystery, she says, is that only one of us ended up dead.

The Fortune Tellers of Zenith City plunges readers into the shadows of Gilded Age Duluth, where the rising walls of Glensheen Mansion mask a city built on industry and rife with sin. May Martin, a dubious clairvoyant haunted by her past, finds her survival tethered to Agnes Petre, a true seer and wealthy divorcee. As May and Agnes forge a partnership in fortune telling to weather the conditions of the gritty port city, their malicious ex-husbands, John and Douglas, start romantic affairs with the carefree Ethelwynne Dean. These tangled relationships clash with brothel owner Madame Gain, a notorious criminal with debts to collect, the ruthless tycoons who rule the iron mines, and the working-class residents struggling beneath them. Beside the icy, foreboding depths of Lake Superior, these denizens must navigate a maze of lies, ambition, and even murder while keeping their own secrets hidden. And the greatest mystery isn’t the spirits they summon—it’s who will escape the impending storm.

With scrupulous attention to historical detail, Mary Dupont recreates the lost world of Duluth at the turn of the twentieth century, delivering chicanery, suspense, drama, and humor through May’s wary, witty perspective—with a thrilling twist at the end.