16,560 suspects. 11 clues. One guilty name. And the mayor didn't do it. At 9:47 on a Tuesday night, a state auditor is found dead in the clock tower of Coldwater Town Hall. He had been in town three days. In three days he found something in the county books that somebody could not afford to have found. By morning the whole county has decided who did it. Mayor Hollis — the man who smiles for every photograph and lies in every speech. His office. His ledgers. His signature on twenty years of paperwork. He had the motive, he had the keys to the tower, and he has never once told the whole truth in his life. There is just one problem. He didn't do it, and Detective Ambrose Flint is the man who saw the alibi. So Flint does something that could cost him his badge. He copies the complete county census ledger — every registered resident and worker across all ten districts — and leaves it with you, along with a folder of evidence and a note: "The real killer's name is in this ledger. The evidence will lead you to it, one cut at a time. When one name remains, that name is the killer. The mayor is a liar, a cheat, and an embarrassment to this county. But he is not a murderer, and I will not watch the wrong man hang." Eleven pieces of evidence. Ten districts. 16,560 names. Cut carefully. What's inside A single continuous case — not a book of short puzzles. One ledger, one killer, one answer. 16,560 suspects across ten Coldwater districts, from Old Town to Foxglove Lane. Highlight them or strike them out depending on your reader. 11 clues applied in strict order, each one cutting deeper than the last. A Checkpoint Card that tells you exactly how many names should survive each clue, so a wrong cut never costs you the whole case. Clean, checkable logic only. No trick wording, no hidden meanings, no outside knowledge required. The Verdict written in reverse at the back, so your eye can't catch it early. How It Connected — the full walkthrough of every thread, once you've earned it. Perfect for readers of The Killer Isn't Alice, Murdle, Murdoku, and Can You Solve the Murder? — and for anyone who has ever wanted a whodunit that hands them the evidence and gets out of the way. About the author Dr. Rabea Hadi is a board-certified family physician and the author of the Coldwater mysteries and the Choose Your Quest series. Years of listening to people explain what happened — and noticing which details didn't fit — turned out to be reasonable training for building puzzles. He writes clean, sharply constructed mysteries for readers who'd rather be handed a ledger than a confession. Coldwater doesn't stay quiet for long. Open the evidence file, sharpen whatever you've got, and find the name Detective Flint couldn't.