"Delicious. That's the best word to describe the second outing of Detective Chief Inspector Arthur St. Just....Malliet is laugh-out-loud funny in describing the cadre of crime writers encountered by the sometimes-flustered [detective]."
Sue Emmons, Mystery Scene Magazine

Death and the Lit Chick

The second book in the DCI St. Just mystery series, Death and the Lit Chick, appeared in April 2009 and is currently nominated for an Anthony Award. Winners will be announced in October 2010 at the Bouchercon mystery convention in San Francisco. Here is what the book is 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.”

---

Read an excerpt from Death and the Lit Chick.

Book club discussion questions for Death and the Lit Chick can be found here.

Death and the Lit Chick -- New Cover (original cover appears below)

Large Print Version

Death and the Lit Chick is also available in large print.

---

Kindle Version