Jane Hepburn Mystery Series

In the follow-up to A Novel Murder, mystery author Jane Hepburn is back and ready to leave her sleuthing skills in the pages of her novels. That is, until she’s invited to a prestigious literary party in London—where the gathering of glamorous attendees may be hiding a killer.

Jane Hepburn has almost made it. After solving the murder of her literary agent at last season’s crime book festival, Jane has received a burst of internet fame that landed her an invite to the coveted Cecil Court book party in London. Visiting beloved bookstores along the winding alleyway of Cecil Court, and brushing shoulders with famous writers and the editors and agents who made them stars, Jane is looking forward to a fun, murder-free weekend and a distraction from her own writer’s block. But an innocent moment of respite leads Jane to the charming, yet indolent assistant to a hotshot editor. The only problem is the assistant happens to be dead, and it is Jane who discovers her body.

Chaos ensues as the police get involved, but the case quickly grows more complicated when the assistant’s boss also shows up dead. What secrets were they hiding? And what was someone trying to conceal by killing them? To ensure that another event isn’t overshadowed by an unsolved murder, Jane and her two loyal friends, debut novelist and star of the party Natasha Martez, and agent intern Daniel Thurston, must put their sleuthing skills to the test. But nothing is as it seems in a party full of attendees with secrets they’d do anything to keep.

Welcome to the Killer Lines Crime Fiction Festival, the place for star writers of the genre to meet their adoring fans. But be careful—this year the murders aren’t just on the page.

“Funny, sharply observed and fiendishly clever” —Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things

In the quaint English town of Hoslewit, the biggest names in crime writing have congregated to celebrate all things bookish and murderous. Author Jane Hepburn is determined to make her time at the Killer Lines festival worthwhile. This is her chance to change her fortunes and make her fictional Private Detective Baker a household name. And if she has to resort to sneaking into the book tent after hours to rearrange some books so hers are front and center, so be it. 

But when Jane encounters the dead body of renowned (and reviled) literary agent Carrie Marks, the festival takes on a decidedly different tone. Joined by Carrie’s newest client, debut novelist Natasha Martez, and the agency’s hapless intern, Daniel Thurston, Jane decides to put her fictional sleuthing skills to use in the real world—she’s going to solve the murder. But the list of suspects is long: seemingly everyone at the festival has a motive to kill Carrie, and the more Jane and her new friends investigate, the closer they come to a dangerous truth—one that’s stranger than fiction.