Publishing can be a cut-throat business – and at the publishing house of Day & Night, this can be literally the case.
Sable Knight knows quite a bit about crime fiction and often has to sift through a deluge of badly-written submissions. But just because a book is badly-written, that doesn’t mean that it’s worthless – especially when it contains a plot on how to commit a perfect murder.
And when other clients – sorry, let’s pretend that they are other authors – need a perfect way to completely hypothetically murder someone, Sable is the person to come to, matching completely hypothetical victims with a completely hypothetical way of killing them.
What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything, obviously…
OK, so I read this a while ago – Len, a friend of the blog, asked me to take an advance look – so my memory is probably a bit fuzzy. But I did send Len some immediate reaction, so let’s start with that.
“a smart original premise alongside a twist-laden plot and sly humour creates one of the most enjoyable mysteries that I’ve read in ages.”
Yes, that sums it up nicely.
Len has long been a blog favourite – in part due to his brilliant writing, whether it be the Ethelred and Elsie “Herring” series or the historical John Grey series, or his exceptional short stories. He’s responsible for some of the loudest laughs I’ve had when reading, such as his chapter in The Sinking Admiral, or that bit with Elsie on the train in The Maltese Herring, but also some very clever plotting and commentary on the world around his characters. Ethelred tells us a lot about the pains of being a writer – and now Sable gives us some insight about the other side of the process, namely publishing.
I think the less said about the plot, the better, as you are going to want to read this without knowing where it is going, because there are a lot of good surprises along the way, with entertaining characters and a satisfying conclusion or three.
And the best news? It looks like there’ll be more to come from Night & Day in the future – but I gather there’s something else on the way from Len first…
The Murder Planner is out in hardback and ebook on 22nd October from Allison & Busby. Many thanks for the review copy.
