Gilbert Ford

Two eleven-year-old misfits try to solve the mystery of a dead magician and stop the evil Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais, who are searching for the secret of immortality.

Cass and Max-Ernest discover the Museum of Magic, unscramble more coded messages, and solve new mysteries in their attempt to thwart the Terces Society's ambitions of discovering immortality.

"Eleven-year-old Maria Russo is trapped under the thumb of Madame Destine, her supposedly psychic mother. Destine is a bona fide con artist who will stop at nothing to swindle her customers into believing she can communicate with the dead. But Maria, unlike her mother, has a big secret -- she really can communicate with the dead, at least with a ghost named Edward, who has been her only friend since she was a child. It's not long before this clairvoyant...

When a mummy disappears from the local history museum while Cass and her friends Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji are there, they try to solve the case in order to clear their names and, they hope, discover the Secret they have been seeking.