Death and the Lit Chick: A St. Just Mystery
The second book in the DCI St. Just mystery series, Death and the Lit Chick, appeared in April 2009. Here is what it's about:
Lord Easterbrook, owner of Deadly Dagger publishing house, has convened his stable of mystery writers at Dalmorton Castle and Spa, near Edinburgh. They’ll be staying at the castle for the weekend of the annual Dead on Arrival writers’ conference. His most honored guest, however, is Kimberlee Kalder, wildly successful young author of the chick lit mystery Dying for a Latte.
Among Kimberlee’s rivals for the bestseller rankings are Magretta Sincock, whose damsel-in-distress novels are fading in popularity with the reading public, and Tom Brackett, whose spy thrillers toppled along with the Berlin wall. Then there’s Winston Chatley, whose dark-and-edgy novels have lost their edge, and Donna Doone, who is hopelessly enmeshed in writing a detective story set in prehistoric times.
In fact, there is no shortage of writers who feel shoved aside by Kimberlee, who goes out of her way to let her fellow scribes know she thinks all of them are past their sell-by date.
Fortunately, Arthur St. Just of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary is also staying at the castle: His Commissioner has dragooned him into giving a presentation at the writers’ conference as part of her “Reach Out!” PR campaign. Only the presence of lovely author Portia De’Ath makes the whole thing bearable.
Despite the tense atmosphere, St. Just is as surprised as the rest when Kimberlee turns up dead, thrown to the bottom of the castle’s bottle dungeon. With his Scottish colleagues, St. Just begins a race against time to find the writer with the “poison pen.”
Large Print Version
