The Ledger and the Loupe

Nora Kestrel used to authenticate priceless art for a Seattle museum. Now she authenticates dead men's attics.

Eighteen months after a forgery scandal ended her career, Nora has come home to foggy little Sparrow Harbor to reopen her late grandmother's estate-appraisal business — one attic, barn, and widow's inheritance at a time. Her first paying client is Captain Addison Feld, a retired ferryman with a house full of maritime treasures and a secret he's not quite ready to share: something in his father's old survey notes that's about to upset one of the island's oldest families.

Two days later, the Captain is dead. Natural causes, says the chief of police. A tidy heart, finally giving out.

But Nora notices what nobody else does — a logbook missing from an otherwise complete set, a rare-book dealer who wants everything except the one volume that matters, and her enormous rescue Newfoundland, Admiral, who won't go near the guest cottage no matter how she coaxes him. As Nora starts appraising the Captain's belongings for his estate sale, she realizes the real inventory isn't silver and sextants. It's motive, opportunity, and a hundred-year-old secret someone will kill to keep buried.

Cozy, character-driven, and built on a fair-play mystery you can solve right alongside her, The Ledger and the Loupe introduces a wry, watchful heroine, a slow-burn romance with the island's quietest boat mechanic, and a small town with far more buried in its attics than anyone lets on.

Perfect for fans of small-town amateur sleuths, antiques-and-provenance puzzles, and cozy mysteries with a warm, wistful maritime heart.