First published 2024
Natalka runs a detective agency in Shoreham with her partner Edwin, but their cases involve missing cats and insurance fraud. She craves something bigger. Her Ukrainian mother Valentyna has moved into her cramped flat with boyfriend Benedict, creating domestic tension. Valentyna cooks constantly and bonds with Benedict while Natalka feels squeezed out. Then writer Melody Chambers dies under suspicious circumstances. Her family believes someone killed her. Edwin notices something odd about Melody's obituary writer, who died before his subject. The investigation leads Benedict and Edwin to a writers retreat where the atmosphere feels wrong. When a second writer turns up dead, Edwin becomes convinced the answers hide in the written word itself. The amateur detectives call their friend, police detective Harbinder Kaur, for help. What they discover goes beyond anything they imagined.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, amateur-sleuth
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Shoreham, Ukraine
Period: Contemporary
338 pages · Hardcover · Mariner Books