Hold on to your hats and buckle your seatbelts because you’re in for a murder mystery roller coaster ride in quintessential Agatha Christie style!
Authors Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White have joined forces once more to pen another bestseller.
The setting is Kinloch Castle on a wild, picturesque Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides. It is Dec.
10, 2022, and internationally bestselling American author Bruce Saffron Presley lies dead in an octagonal chamber in the castle tower, locally known as “the Obelisk.”
It is a macabre, brutal murder scene. Pressley, wearing a woman’s dominatrix costume, is sprawled face down in a puddle of mead, impaled in the back by a stag’s antler. When the island’s Detective Chief Inspector Euan Macintosh arrives on the scene, he has no doubt foul play is afoot.
So begins this salaciously humorous tale of murder and mayhem, spiced with a good dose of romance.
Despite having little tolerance for Americans, Macintosh reluctantly begins his investigation with interviews of three visiting U.S.-based authors: Cassie Pringle, Emma Endicott, and Kat de Noir, who had rented Kinloch Castle from the famous Presley for a writers’ retreat.
As with all good fictional detectives, Macintosh quickly exposes shared lies, hidden secrets, and no alibi for the three women on the night of the famous author’s demise. As the detective’s suspicions grow, an arrest seems imminent.
Desperate to prove their innocence, however, an unlikely trio of amateur sleuths sets out to unmask the real culprit.
Who would want to kill the insufferable American author and use them as cover? Is there a connection between his erotic murder and the unsavory past of Naughty Ned, the lecherous Kinloch laird who was poisoned in 1900? It’s a do-or-die assignment for our three musketeers: find the real killer — or perhaps face a Scottish prison.
The Author’s Guide to Murder is a surprisingly heartwarming whodunit brimming with satire, sarcasm, and witty repartee between the richly developed cast of characters. The tongue-in-cheek banter alone is worth the price of admission in this cleverly told tale.
The three heroines are lovable: endearing Cassie, the Southern mother of six(!) children; frugal Emma, the New England blue blood and a stickler for truth in historical fiction; and feisty Kat, the siren sex expert.
Macintosh is an engaging fictional detective reminiscent of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, Commisario Guido Brunetti, and, of course, the inimitable Hercule Poirot.
This is a delicious must-read by three excellent New York Times- bestselling authors, who are at their peak in this fifth collaborative novel. So, curl up on a cold winter night with this utterly satisfying tale and perhaps a wee dram of whisky to savor what’s in store.
Book reviewer Lisa Dubois lives in Greensboro. She previously served as the first lady of UNC Charlotte, was an appellate lawyer with the California Attorney General’s Office, and taught as an adjunct law professor at the University of Wyoming.