Murder in Jigtime begins with the death of Shigeru Kinama, a renowned San Francisco dealer of Oriental antiquities and a master gamesman. He leaves behind a series of puzzles, each a clue to the mystery surrounding his daughter Jacqueline, and also to his own murder.

Jacqueline hires Carter Kane, private investigator and owner of Kane Research and Investigations, to help her solve the puzzles and find her father's murderer. The trail of clues leads Carter from California to Hawaii and reveals a mysterious artist, a twenty-year old murder, a threat by the underworld yakuza, an art scam, and a scramble to assemble a priceless collection of gold Japanese figurines missing since World War II.

Carter Kane is also a gamesplayer, a puzzle creator as well as solver, and delights in unraveling the various threads connecting the seemingly unrelated parts of the total puzzle. She is still coming to terms with the loss of her husband and is able to help Jacqueline deal with the death of her father. Aided by her secretary, Savannah Scott, and friend and retired San Francisco police chief, Sam Post, she successfully solves each puzzle and uncovers the murderer and the answers to all of Shigeru Kinama's games.

Merritt Alden Booster grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, and now lives in Santa Rosa, California, with her husband and three daughters. She is the Gifted and Talented Education Coordinator, and Assistant for Public Relations in the Rincon Valley School District in Santa Rosa. She is also currently the area representative to the California Association for the Gifted.

"Wills Alden" represents two maiden names, as Merritt writes in collaboration with her mother, Sara Wills Alden. In addition to Murder in Jigtime, they have written Promise Twice, and are currently working on L’Alibi Baby. In all three novels the solution is found by Carter Kane, private investigator, who is also known as an author of crosswords, and a collector of strange puzzles of all kinds.

"The Kinama family has always been interested in puzzles and games, going back a century or more. My grandfather in Japan manufactured toys and puzzles, and my father inherited what he called 'the love of enigmatic challenges.'

"About twelve years ago, Father started giving me a special one, an invitation to visit some distant place with him during the summer. Every spring a new jigsaw."

"So you didn't know where you were going until you put it together?"

"Right. A specially ordered puzzle about the place we were going to visit. Each year he made it harder for me to guess." She smiled. "One year it was the lions, just the lions, in a courtyard of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Another year it was the uppermost epi of the Eiffel Tower. That one took me ages to find out where that damned little spire was."

What an extraordinary way to work with a child. The geography was secondary; the main object was to teach the tenacious disciplines of research.

"So where were you going this year?"

"That's one of my problems. I don't know. Apparently someplace really different, because he said it was the last jigsaw he'd give me, the last trip we'd make together. I don't know where, why, or even when, but I've got to know fast."

"You think it's somehow connected with his murder?"

"I'm positive it is. I've had the jigsaw for three weeks, and it's a killer. Oh God. Why did I say that? What I mean is, it's double-sided, like yours over there. I just didn't make time for it. Now it's too late.

"Why was this to be the last trip?"

"Because I'm graduating next Saturday. Father said that since that marked an end to my formal education, and since I'd be twenty-one soon, our travel this year would be different, the last of its kind. He didn't say more, and I just kept postponing things, putting off facing up to my father."

"All right. Now just what does all this have to do with your father's death?"

"That's what I've got to find out. I've got to solve the puzzle, the jigsaw, as quickly as possible. Maybe it'll even point to who killed him."

Carter frowned. "I still don't see . . . "

Jig reached out to grab Carter's arm. "You saw it right there on the desk. He left me a message, a word written in his own blood."