When a group of elite mystery writers publish a list of unforgivable sins in detective fiction, the crime of bad writing leads to actual murder.
Inspired by Agatha Christie’s real-life Detection Club!
June, 1931. Frank and Lucy Murray have become the most famous married couple in the crime writing world. With the media’s interest in their relationship bordering on intrusive, all eyes are on the Murrays and their colleagues in the Cloak and Dagger Club, London’s elite group of Britain’s finest mystery authors. The club has recently published their tongue-in-cheek set of rules for crime writing, entitled “The Cardinal Rules of Crime.” Inspired by plot sins they’ve identified in the works of other popular writers, the rules lay out the blueprint for the “fair play” mystery—first and foremost, all clues must be present for the reader to be able to solve the crime themselves.
The rules have generated both praise and backlash. Readers appreciate them, sick of nonsensical plot twists and crucial evidence reveals at the eleventh hour. But they’ve angered many of their author peers, guilty themselves of lazy writing and furious at the hits to their reputations. When two murders occur, each corresponding in a macabre way with the first two of rules, Frank, Lucy, and their creative colleagues must catch a killer amongst a group of maligned, mediocre mystery writers.
