Whose ghost has escaped the Grim Reaper?
Following the memorial service for investigative reporter Joe Strombel, Strombel's spirit finds himself on the barge of death with several others, including a young woman who believes she was poisoned by her employer, Peter Lyman. The woman tells Strombel she thinks Lyman, a handsome British aristocrat with political ambitions, may be the Tarot Card Killer, a notorious serial killer of prostitutes, and that he killed her when she stumbled onto his secret. The Tarot Card Killer left a card on each murder victim's body.
Sondra Pransky is a beautiful but awkward American journalism student on vacation in London. Pransky attends a performance given by magician Sid Waterman, aka "The Great Splendini", and agrees to participate onstage. While in a booth known as The Dematerializer, Pransky encounters Strombel's ghost. The ghost has escaped the Grim Reaper himself to impart his suspicions of Lyman to a journalist who can investigate the story. Sondra decides to infiltrate Lyman's privileged world and find out if he truly is the dreaded criminal, enlisting Sid in the process and taking advantage of his powers of deception.
Joe Strombel