Quirky Sleuths. Big Murders. Very Bad Alibis.
Retired librarian Bea O'Connell believes every murder is, at heart, a research failure. When true-crime podcaster Cash Bell is found dead between the rolling shelves of the Port Bellwether library archive during a donor reception, clutching an overdue slip from 1986, the crime appears tied to the old disappearance he came home to investigate.
Cash's sister had motive. The library has secrets. Donors who claim to love local history suddenly become very interested in which version of that history survives. But Bea notices something everyone else misses: the date stamp on the supposedly old slip belongs to a machine the library did not own until years later.
Someone has manufactured a piece of history and left it beside a corpse. Unfortunately for them, Bea spent a career knowing exactly when every label, stamp, box, and catalog system changed. She does not jump to conclusions. She arrives at them with citations.
