Who killed Captain Littleton Condiff? The wife who slept by his side? A robber seeking the small fortune under his mattress? A son desperate to escape the drudgery of his father's life as an oysterman? His apparently harmless mother-in-law? Perhaps a conspiracy of his wife, her mother, their son? Into this tale of murder at the turn of the 20th century is woven the tale of the imprisonment and trial of Littleton's wife, Bessie; the history of his Chesapeake Bay fishing village, Solomons Island; the harsh life of a waterman; and the texture of daily life in turn-of-the century Maryland.