When fourteen-year-old Nick Caden vacations at Deadwood Canyon Ghost Town, he finds himself in the middle of a mystery involving ghosts of infamous dead outlaws, disappearing dead bodies, and murders.

Jake Prescott is an amateur magician hustling tourists on the streets of Reno, when the magician Augustus Towers takes him on as an assistant; Towers has plans to renovate the Regal Theater where The Marvelous Melbourne died in his Spirit Cabinet in 1948--Jake is soon spooked by the creepy atmosphere, convinced that the malevolent spirit of Melbourne is still there guarding his tricks.