The Last Boat Ledger

The scheduled shuttle was canceled. The ledger says Elias boarded anyway.

When paper conservator Maja Furrer is asked to examine a boat-club passenger ledger in Spiez, Switzerland, its final entry raises an impossible question: volunteer archivist Elias Bärtschi is marked aboard the 22:10 regatta crossing, even though the harbour notice says the club's shuttle never left.

Then Elias is found dead in the club's record room.

Launchmaster Reto Kummer says he saw Elias board. But Maja spots a boarding mark added after the cancellation, and the club's smaller safety launch returned that night without an operator's name. The crossed-out name in the ledger belongs to a young coach with reasons to keep an old injury private.

As Inspector Luca Marti follows the official investigation, Maja sticks to what the paper can prove. To untangle the last crossing, she must learn which boat Elias boarded, why the ledger records the canceled Drossel, and who came back to the harbour.

A fair-play Swiss cozy mystery on Lake Thun, featuring a paper conservator, a close-knit boat club, and a non-graphic murder. Book two in the Lake Thun Archive Mysteries.