Beadle's Dime Library No. 327

This issue of the New York Detective Library contains the opening chapters of a detective serial titled "The Cranston Murder." Detective Dick "Terrapin" Risden, a renowned investigator from Boston, is hired by Mr. Allyn, a Maine lawyer, to locate Nick Sanders, a stableman who absconded after allegedly murdering wealthy widow Julia Jardine. The victim was found strangled in her bed; Sanders' muddy shoes matched tracks beneath her window. The case appears straightforward until Risden encounters Allyn late that night in a disreputable Boston neighborhood with a woman known to him. Suspicious of the lawyer's true motives, Risden has a plainclothes officer follow Allyn as he becomes entangled with a woman named Kate, her alleged brother Joe, and an apparent confidence scheme involving a lottery prize.