Nicholas Child is a writer. His first mystery didn’t make a huge splash in the publishing world, and his second book, a sequel, was lackluster at best. His publisher dropped him but he keeps hoping inspiration will strike and he’ll be able to create a real hit.
While he is worried his agent will drop him at any time, he’s surprised when she approaches him with a proposal instead. Another of her clients, Marco Tavares, is having trouble writing the follow-up to his huge bestseller. She asks Nicholas to help Marco determine whether anything he has written can be salvaged, and perhaps help him find his focus.
The plan is for Nicholas to spend the Christmas holidays at Marco’s Cape Cod mansion. Marco and his artist wife, Maeve, live there, along with Marco’s sister and grandmother. And then the house fills with other guests—Marco’s ex and her jealous husband, Marco’s childhood best friend Billy, and James Beers, who at one point accused Marco of stealing his story idea, which he then turned into his massive bestseller.
Marco isn’t a particularly likable person, and while he agreed to have Nicholas help him, he’s not all that eager to listen to him. Nicholas feels like the gathering is the setup to a murder mystery—everyone in the house, including Maeve, has a reason to want to kill Marco. The next morning, two bodies are found, but what happened the previous evening? And who is to blame?
This was pretty twisty and I had no idea what was fact and what was fiction. Little by little, Swanson reveals interesting details that aren’t mentioned earlier, and it ratchets up the suspense. I thought the story worked really well as a novella.
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