Dead before docking

On board the Wellfleet, someone was plotting murder.

It was Jeff who spotted a loudly dressed man in a dockside phone booth, and Jeff, a proficient speech reader, who decoded the man's chilling message, "Don't worry. . . he'll be dead before they reach port. Our friend knows his business."

Only after the South America bound freighter had left port did Jeff fully realize his predicament. Who will believe him? Armed only with the warning, a lengthy list of would-be killers and victims, and a sleuth's instinct for telling clues, Jeff must foil an unknown murderer.