The Author's Guide to Murder : A Novel

There’s been a sensational murder at historic Castle Kinloch a gothic fantasy of granite on a remote island in the Scottish Highlands. Literary superstar Brett Saffron Presley has been found dead—under bizarre circumstances—in the castle tower’s book-lined study. Years ago Presley purchased the castle as a showpiece and to lure paying guests with a taste for writerly glamour. Now it seems the castle has done him in…or possibly one of the castle’s guests has. Detective Chief Inspector Euan McIntosh a local with no love for this literary American show-off (or Americans in general) finds himself with the unenviable task of extracting statements from three American lady novelists. The prime suspects are Kat de Noir a slinky erotica writer; Cassie Pringle a Southern mom of six juggling multiple cozy mystery series; and Emma Endicott a New England blue blood and author of critically acclaimed historical fiction. The women claim to be best friends writing a book together: a historical novel about the castle’s original laird who himself ended up creatively murdered. But the authors’ stories don’t quite line up and the detective is getting increasingly suspicious. Why did the authors really come to Castle Kinloch? Is the murder of the long-ago lairdsomehow connected with the playboy author’s unfortunate demise? And what really happened the night Brett Saffron Presley had his rendezvous with death? A crafty locked-room mystery a pointed satire about the literary world and a tale ofunexpected friendship and romance—this novel has it all as only three bestselling authors can tell it!