The Gingerbread Alibi

One producer found under every lamp in the Grange. Six suspects. One caulking mallet.

On the day the Merchants' Association board is to vote on his plan, Preston Gale, the producer hired to rebuild the Gingerbread Village of Larkspur Cove, Maine, as a ticketed Holiday Market, is found dead in the Grange with every lamp in the building still burning. One blow, from a caulking mallet that belongs to Amos Tarbell, who has built the Village every year since 1998 and who told a hall full of neighbors that if a ticket booth went on the base, "one of us would not be standing in this hall."

Clementine "Clem" Ashworth, who spent twelve years as a Boston forensic accountant and has never been able to leave a number alone, is the one who finds him, at 4:55 in the morning. Amos will say only that he was "out from seven." Beside him in Clem's ledger: a baker whose window a clause has put out of bounds, a boatbuilder told his contract was at an end, a feed-store Santa who walked in to the Chief on his own, a treasurer who signs what is put in front of her, and an associate producer who apologizes to the carpet, plus the Cove's favorite suspect, a stranger nobody has seen, and a one-eared cat who keeps his own files.

With the Village's Lighting two days away and a neighbor's mallet on the evidence, can Clem find the truth before the Cove settles for a stranger?

Inside every Crumb & Compass Mystery:

• A Cast of Suspects and Clue Boards, so you can solve it alongside Clem
• A cozy small town, a bakery, and a very opinionated cat
• A Recipe Box with twelve recipes from the story
• A clean read: no profanity and no graphic violence

Book 6 of the Crumb & Compass Mysteries. Each mystery is solved within its own book.