Murder Your Darlings

by Mark McCrum

Overview

Crime writer-sleuth Francis Meadowes discovers something dark hiding under the beautiful Umbrian sun when one of his writing group is found dead in Italy.

Francis Meadowes is soaking up the late summer sun in Italy, running a creative writing course at the beautiful Villa Giulia, deep in the remote Umbrian countryside. Recruited by the villa’s owners, Stephanie and Gerry, Francis’s students include snooty, irritating Poppy and her ex-ambassador husband Duncan, eccentric Northern Irishman Liam, quirky, self-styled ‘Hampstead Jewess’ Zoe, bossy Scottish Diana, kooky young American Sasha, mysterious ‘spy’ Tony and restless civil servant Roz.

But what should be a magical week under the Italian sun turns into something far more sinister when one of the group is found dead, and the local police quickly turn to Francis for help. Uncovering betrayal, lies, secrets and old scores to be settled, Francis soon realizes something very dark is lurking beneath the genteel and civilized veneer . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780727889935
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	03/03/2020
Series:	A Francis Meadowes Mystery , #3
Edition description:	First World Publication
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.98(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mark McCrum began his career as a travel writer, with well-received books about Southern Africa (Happy Sad Land), Australia (No Worries) and Ireland (The Craic). He is also the author of the UK Top Ten non-fiction bestsellers 1900 House, Castaway 2000, and the UK No.1 bestseller Robbie Williams: Somebody Someday. His debut novel, The Festival Murders, featuring crime writer-sleuth Francis Meadowes, was longlisted for the Independent on Sunday’s 2014 Alternative Booker prize, and selected as the Mail on Sunday’s ‘Thriller of the Week’. The second Francis Meadowes mystery, Cruising to Murder, is also available from Severn House.

Editorial Reviews

01/06/2020

McCrum’s amusing third Francis Meadows mystery (after 2018’s Cruising to Murder) takes British crime writer Francis to Italy, where he has agreed to teach a memoir writing course at an elegant villa in the Umbrian countryside. Among his eight budding memoirists are an Irishman (“such a caricature of the type that Francis would have ruled him out as a ‘realistic character’ ”) and three refined ladies in their 70s. It comes as no surprise that haughty Poppy, one of the septuagenarians who had managed to irritate everyone with her endless reminiscences about her past glories, is eventually found dead. The police arrive, including Commissario Marta Moretti, the officer in charge, who asks Francis to assist in the investigation because of his “experience as a detective.” Francis spends a lot of time running through the possible suspects with the attractive Marta. Readers will have fun, but the flimsy mystery element won’t challenge genre fans. Agent: Jamie Maclean, Coombs Moylett Maclean (U.K.). (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

'Readers will do best to relax and enjoy these quirky characters and their sun-drenched setting'

Booklist

2019-12-09
A writing course in an Italian villa goes horribly wrong.

Writing teacher Francis Meadowes has taught off-site courses before, including one aboard a floating classroom (Cruising to Murder, 2018). So his stint at the Villa Giulia in the Umbrian countryside should be a snap. Gerry and Stephanie are excellent hosts who set an opulent table for their guests, a largely middle-aged group of highly mixed talents. But it's the subject matter of his course rather than the venue or the students that provides a challenge for the biracial Francis. He knows practically nothing about his Botswanan father since he was adopted as a young child by a white English couple. But now that he's teaching memoir writing, he's reading autobiographical drafts submitted by his students, particularly a long piece by self-described "Hampstead Jewess" Zoe, whose account of her family's Holocaust struggles makes Francis wonder how to make sense of a personal history like his, which is full of blank pages. His concerns are amplified by the presence of Sasha White-Moloney, another person of color, the only American and the only student younger than 30 in his class. But he sets aside his private concerns when Poppy Pugh-Smith, whose place as the most obnoxious student in the class is undisputed, is found murdered in the sauna. Poppy has made herself unpopular by her imperious manner and her inane stories about life at her ancestral home, the impeccable Framley Grange. But is her incessantly self-laudatory prose really enough to make someone kill her? As the Italian police press hard for answers, first confiscating the writers' passports and eventually locking down the villa, Francis needs to find answers fast.

A neat twist on the classic English-country-house formula.

Kirkus Reviews

'Readers will do best to relax and enjoy these quirky characters and their sun-drenched setting'

Booklist