
Part 1
When homicide detectives Kennedy and Donovan are called to a downtown bar, they find a young man dead on the floor, his demise pinned on a single, seemingly ordinary drink. A quick look at the bottle reveals a lethal dose of arsenic, turning a routine nightcap into a murder mystery that has the precinct buzzing. The bartender, Timothy Garver, insists he never saw the victim before and swears the poison was not his doing, setting off a clash of alibis and doubts.
As the lab works and the detectives interrogate the nervous barkeep, the case spirals into a maze of missing motives, hidden formulas, and the unsettling feeling that something larger is at play. The narrative follows the pair as they sift through forensic clues, press a reluctant witness, and wrestle with the unsettling question of whether they’re being led astray. Readers are drawn into a tense, methodical hunt for truth, where each detail could be the key to cracking the equation that binds the crime together.
Language
en
Duration
~25 minutes (24K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Greenleaf Publishing Company, 1956.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2021-11-17
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1909–1977
A prolific pulp-era writer and editor, he moved easily between science fiction, mystery, and other popular genres. He also helped shape the field behind the scenes as an early magazine editor.
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