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

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 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 centre, 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—by solving the murder. But the list of suspects is long: seemingly everyone at the festival had 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.