No Alibi, No Motive

Claire Davenport has sold books at the Bainbridge ferry terminal for eleven years and has opinions about exactly three things: paper stock, footnotes, and people who dog-ear. The Friday regular is dead. Stabbed, on the 7:05, on the car deck. The state patrol has a suspect by lunchtime — a deckhand with a record and no alibi. Claire has an alibi for him. She watched him the whole crossing, arguing about a rust spot, and now nobody wants to write it down. The dead man bought the same out-of-print handbook every week for six years. Somebody has been collecting the other copies. Claire is a bookseller with a bad attitude and a long commute. It turns out that's a skill set. A Bainbridge Island murder mystery with a sharp tongue and a ferry timetable.