The Margin Notes

At 0500 hours, the sealed rare books vault of Aldridge University opens for a routine diagnostic sweep and discovers that a priceless folio has vanished overnight. Only a handful of people hold credentials to the chamber, and every one of them becomes a suspect. Senior librarian Margaret Holloway calls in Detective Jonas Veers to investigate, but he finds a closed circle of scholars more interested in protecting reputations than solving crimes. As Veers combs through the evidence and Holloway deciphers centuries of institutional politics, a trail of margin notes, cryptic letters, and old debts begins to emerge. Dean Reginald Polk guards the university's reputation. Custodian Horace Quint knows the building's hidden passages. Archivist Elena Marsh harbors a grudge against the victim. And someone keeps referencing a woman named Imogen Castellan, whose absence seems to explain everything. When a second theft occurs behind locked doors, Holloway realizes the perpetrator is playing a longer game, one designed to expose a secret the institution has buried for decades. She must choose between the truth and the fragile order of the collection she has devoted her life to protecting, knowing that either choice will cost her something she cannot get back.