The Penmorrow Ledger

The Bay Hotel's civic dinner accounts for every guest—yet before the evening is over, one of them lies dead at the harbour office. Nora Rosvear has uncovered troubling differences between an approved quay project and the maintenance work quietly added afterward. When a December gale sweeps into Penmorrow, she carries the records to the harbour office, intending to force a reckoning. Instead, she is murdered, and the papers left behind point toward rival contractors, a resentful clerk and a committee determined to protect its reputation. Hotel owner Edmund Trewin and his niece Katherine compare the Bay's dinner records with the harbour's storm returns. Harbourmaster Amos Jago helps them separate genuine emergency work from a carefully delayed entry, while an untouched meal and a missing journey fracture a seemingly perfect alibi. As 1937 draws to a close, Edmund and Katherine face a killer hidden between two honest systems—where neither ledger lies, but together they conceal the truth.