When three prolific and bestselling authors get together to write a novel, you can imagine potential fallings out as easily as you can them getting on and enjoying the process. Well, Williams, Willig and White, “Team W” as they’re known, have already written four novels together, and this, their fifth is a locked room murder mystery, with some romance thrown into the mix and set in a Scottish castle on an island during a writers retreat; it’s also unashamedly spoofing cosy mysteries fairly obviously (not as subltle as Jonathan Coe’s latest). The three are best known for their historical romances, but this time have stayed in the present, creating a trio of American women authors on the retreat – best friends – or are they? The three are: “Kat de Noir, a slinky erotica writer; Cassie Pringle, a Southern mom of six juggling multiple cozy mystery series; and Emma Endicott, a New England blue blood and author of critically acclaimed historical fiction.” After reading the novel, I had fun reading the three real author bios, to try to match them up – did Oklahoma-born White write Cassie, New Englander Willig write Emma, which leaves Williams as Kat? That’s just my supposition – and could be totally wrong – given that they all write historical romances normally. Anyway, to the book…
Castle Kinloch stands on a remote island in the Highlands. It is a castle with a history, not just the usual ghosts, but one of its lairds in Edwardian times was known as Naughty Ned, a sex fiend, preying on the young women of the island. The current Laird of Kinloch, Archie, couldn’t be more different, but he can’t afford the castle’s upkeep and development, so he leased it to another American author, Brett Saffron Presley, bestselling author of horror novels. Apart from running writing retreats, at which Presley himself is not guaranteed to be in attendance, Presley, much to Archie’s dismay, is planning a museum celebrating Naughty Ned and all his sex toys in the Obelisk – the tower/folly in the castle grounds.
Our trio arrive to be greeted by Calum, the butler equivalent, and wearer of many hats including spa technician and ghost tour guide, he is also followed around by Beatrice, his pet sheep. His mother, Morag, is the cook and housekeeper, and between them they run the castle and retreat for Presley, who as promised is conspicuous by his absence. It soon becomes clear that the three authors are there on a mission, not necessarily to write a book together which is their cover. They start sneaking around asking about Presley, so when Presley himself turns up at the village ceilidh, leaving early, only to be found dead in the Obelisk tower, our three heroines are the prime suspects. DCI Euan McIntosh is on the case, aided by his sister Fiona, another many hatted character (Medical Examiner, GP and midwife). Getting sense out of the three authors is another matter for the DCI though, the winkling out of how the three all knew Presley is no easy task.
The timeline jumps around from their arrival to the resolution – before and after the murder. It makes things quite complicated to follow at times, but necessarily so as the three all tell different stories. There are twists aplenty, and all is done with great humour (particularly on the part of Kat de Noir). Of course the castle’s wifi isn’t up to scratch, nor the phone signal, so Cassie in particular worries about her children left with Chip back home when she doesn’t hear from him.
The three authors are all deliberate stereotypes. Emma is the history buff who is prided for her research and can be a bore; Cassie is mother of six and adoring wife of Chip; and Kat lives up to her erotica genre by wearing bustiers, and stiletto pantaboots (they are a thing – look it up!). They may start off as three women scorned, who don’t really know each other at all, but they will end up best friends as they have to start working together to extricate themselves from the suspect list. And given that the real authors of this book all write romances, there is the promise of happiness for each of the three heroines.
At the beginning the three real authors apologise to the people of Scotland, as much fun is made with the Scottish accent and those rolling rrrrs, and also the subject of plaid, as Americans call tartan cloth gets plenty of overkill as Cassie overdoes it with the wrong clan tartans.
Given that we jump PoV each chapter, alternating between the three women and their interviews with the DCI, and each having slightly different versions of events, it does get maddeningly complicated at times, with each of them not quite ready to confide in the others for too long, but I just went with the flow and let all the twists surprise me, for my first inklings were too easily wrong!
I rather enjoyed this fun mystery romp in the Highlands. It pleasantly surprised me that the three authors made it work well, and kept it witty.
Source: Review copy – thank you. William Morrow paperback, 404 pages.
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This really is a team effort. Hard to imagine how the three approach it but if obviously works well.