In the Market for Murder

To help celebrate the 100th birthday (in mid-August) of Seattle’s landmark Pike Place Market, thriller writer Robert Ferrigno (Prayers for the Assassin), who lives in the area, today launches the first installment of a four-part novella in The Seattle Times. Judging solely by this initial entry, “Double Strike” follows two paths: one a current story line, following a young woman named Janine (“a pretty, lightly freckled redhead with no self-confidence and better taste in shampoo than men”), who accidentally discovers a double-headed Lady Liberty silver dollar from 1899 jammed between cobblestones in a Market alley; and a second story track, built around a poor and desperate, but still ambitious Seattle boy named Henry who, in 1931, steals what is apparently that same coin from a yellow-suited criminal type, only to have the swell offer him a job. But what sort of job, we’re left to wonder until tomorrow’s installment. You can either read Part I of “Double Strike” here, or listen to Ferrigno read it here.

(Illustration by Gabi Campanario for The Seattle Times.)