Autumn 1928. At the Hotel Cormorant, on the wharf side of the little fishing town of Tallow Bay, licensee Edgar Prowse keeps two sets of books: one for the brewery, one for the cases of whisky that come ashore after midnight. On the morning of Saturday 31 March he is found wedged in the jetty piles at low tide, his skull broken and the harbour in his lungs. Everyone in the hotel can tell you exactly where they were when it happened — and every one of them is reading the same clock in the front hall.

Setting

1920s, harbour hotel in a small coastal town

Tone

Classic whodunit with a noir edge: cosy hotel geography and a fair-play timetable, told in salt air, cigarette smoke and quiet blackmail. Violence is forensic and brief; the cruelty is in the ledgers.

Suspects

6

Evidence drops

3

Play time

~120 minutes

Rating

15+