Jane Lawless lives in a rambling, three-story house on Minneapolis's Lake Harriet with her aunt and uncle and, usually, a tenant in the third-floor apartment. Her newest renter is Elliot Beauman, a writer who seems nice but who's just graced the newspapers with an account of a murder he witnessed but didn't see: Elliot says he's psychic, and his latest visions have been of murder. Lately Jane has her hands full in her personal life, wrestling with long hours at the Lyme House Restaurant and a long-distance and often volatile relationship with Julia, whose medical practice keeps her busy and far away. So the last thing Jane needs is a strange man living upstairs in her own home. Little does she know that her troubles are only beginning.