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Low Tide at Cape Ellis

Name: Low Tide at Cape Ellis
Price: 7.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.4 (5 reviews)
Author: J. R. Caldwell

by J. R. Caldwell · published via Smithbook

A harbormaster finds a skiff with the engine running and nobody aboard. The tide is going out.

★★★★☆ 4.4 · 5 reviews 41 readers English

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★★★★★

"Went straight into The Ferryman’s Ledger. Nora is my new favorite detective."

yvo•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test · verified reader

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What it covers

coastal crimeMaineharbormastersmall town

About this book

Nora Tibbetts has been harbormaster of Cape Ellis for eleven years. She knows every boat, every mooring and every family that has lied to her about both. When a skiff drifts into the harbor at dawn with the engine running and nobody aboard, the town wants to call it an accident. Nora has until the next low tide to prove it wasn’t. The first Cape Ellis mystery.

Look inside · First chapter

The skiff came in on the last of the ebb, turning slow circles in the channel with its outboard idling. Nora Tibbetts saw it from the harbormaster’s shack at twenty past five and knew before she reached the float that nobody was aboard. She tied it off to the town dock and killed the engine. The tank was half full. There was a thermos in the bow, still warm, and a pair of rubber gloves folded on the seat the way a careful man folds them. There was no blood, no damage, no sign of anything at all.

Keep reading. Read the first chapter free →

Product details

Title: Low Tide at Cape Ellis
Author: J. R. Caldwell
Format: Digital · browser reader
Language: English
Category: Mystery & Investigation
Delivery: In seconds · to your e-mail
Access: Lifetime · any device
Publisher: Independent · via Smithbook

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Reviews

4.4

★★★★☆

5 reviews

5★3

4★1

3★1

2★0

1★0

★★★★★ · yvo•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/19/2026

Bought the next one right away

Went straight into The Ferryman’s Ledger. Nora is my new favorite detective.

★★★★☆ · ber•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/9/2026

Good first book

A little slow in the middle, but the last chapter pays for everything.

★★★★★ · fra•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test8/27/2026

Nora is the real thing

I grew up on the Maine coast and he gets the harbor exactly right. Couldn’t stop reading.

★★★☆☆ · hec•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test8/27/2026

Solid, not surprising

Well written. I guessed the culprit halfway through but still enjoyed the ride.

★★★★★ · car•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test8/22/2026

Tight and cold

Short chapters, no wasted words. The reveal at the ferry dock is excellent.

About the author

J. R. Caldwell

For twenty years I investigated insurance claims up and down the coast of Maine: boat fires, warehouse floods, one very suspicious lobster pound. Most people told me the truth. The ones who did not taught me how a story falls apart when you pull the right thread. My Cape Ellis books follow Nora Tibbetts, a harbormaster who keeps finding things the tide was supposed to take. I write early in the morning before the ferries start, in a kitchen that looks out on Casco Bay. I have a wife, two grown kids and a dory I keep meaning to paint.

See all books by J. R. Caldwell →

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