The Sleuth He Married

Gus Renner retired from Bainbridge Island's police force with a bad back and a plan involving a hammock. His wife Tilda had other plans — like finding the island's slickest real-estate broker face-down in her prize heirloom roses. The broker was buying the island out from under its oldest families, one forged easement at a time. The garden club hates him. The farmers hate him. And a surveyor and a land-trust lawyer hate him enough — or knew enough — to die next. Gus wants this handled by the book, by someone else. Tilda has a chalkboard in the kitchen and a running list of suspects. Together they follow a twenty-year-old land deal back to a man everyone loves, to the last working farm on the island, and to a dawn at the ferry dock where the truth comes home.