First published 2014
Leonora Quine arrives at Cormoran Strike's office with a familiar problem. Her husband Owen has vanished again, just as he's done countless times before. The novelist tends to disappear when life gets complicated, and Leonora expects Strike to track him down and drag him home. Strike takes the case, figuring it will be routine work. But Owen Quine has left behind more than an empty house. His latest manuscript reads like a weapon, filled with vicious portraits of real people in his life. The book would destroy reputations and end careers if it ever saw print. Strike realizes that plenty of people have motives to silence the author permanently. When Quine turns up dead under grotesque circumstances, the simple missing person case becomes a murder investigation. Strike must untangle the web of enemies Quine created with his poisonous words. Someone killed to keep those secrets buried, and they've planned the murder with chilling precision.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
481 pages · Kindle Edition · Little, Brown and Company
Content warnings: death, murder, violence