Book Review - Lauren Willig, Beatriz Williams, and Karen White's The Author's Guide to Murder
The Author's Guide to Murder by Lauren Willig, Beatriz Williams, and Karen White
Published by: William Morrow and Company
Publication Date: November 5th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Authors Kat de Noir, Cassie Pringle, and Emma Endicott all had their own reasons for not wanting to hear Brett Saffron Presley's keynote address at Bouchercon. Which is why the bar was the place to be for those not worshiping at the altar of the "great man." The three authors walked into the bar and became besties at first sight. Besties with plans to concoct for their future collaboration, Fifty Shades of Plaid! At first it was a joke, a way to write, tour, and more importantly, drink together, with their publisher picking up the tab. And at first their shared editor, Rachelle Cohen, laughed off the suggestion, but she wasn't laughing a month later when they brought her a real book proposal. Which is how Kat, Cassie, and Emma end up at Brett Saffron Presley's Scottish castle. Years ago he rented Castle Kinloch from it's destitute heir and turned it into an overpriced writer's retreat where he could indulge his womanizing ways with the nubile young authors who were desperate for a leg up. Thankfully that descriptor fits none of the three collaborators. The trio are more interested in Naughty Ned than Badly Behaved Brett. Naughty Ned was the laird of Kinloch Island. Known for his sexual depravity and orgies, he was poisoned during a house party in 1900 and his murder was never solved. And this lewd laird is the perfect inspiration for Fifty Shades of Plaid. Though that might prove to be problematic as the locals don't like to talk about Naughty Ned. His murder is the most notorious thing to happen on the island until Brett Saffron Presley is found dead the night of the ceilidh. His body is bound in strategic strips of black leather, surrounded by erotic tapestries, and pseudomedieval accouterments in the castle's tower. The three female American writers staying at the castle soon become the prime suspects. But why could they possibly want Brett Saffron Presley dead? They're best friends, they're there to write... Or are they? Because at that Bouchercon over a year ago Brett Saffron Presley announced his new book, a "graphic and no-holds-barred memoir of his life as the most innovative and controversial writer of his generation" and all three women have had previous run-ins with him. Emma, when she and Brett were a couple, Kat when she was an up-and-coming author at Yaddo, and Cassie at the 2019 CrimeLovers Convention in New York City. But what happened between them and Brett Saffron Presley for them to fake friendship in order to exact revenge and possibly murder? How bad could it be?
Team W is known for their historical fiction. Intertwining narratives linking past and present. So, coming out with what basically amounts to a murderous roman à clef set in the present doesn't feel logical. Some might say that The Author's Guide to Murder doesn't feel like a Team W book at all. Counterpoint, it's the most Team W book EVER. They mine themselves and their shared history to create a meta melange where you're not sure what's real and what's not. Because them bonding in a bar and deciding to collaborate on a book called Fifty Shades of Plaid? That is one hundred percent true. As was their desire for their publisher to foot the bar bill. And all the sheep jokes. The thing is, usually an author's book isn't them unless it's a memoir. Who they are and what they write are totally separate things. But if you've ever been lucky enough to see Lauren, Beatriz, and Karen interact, to see them promoting a book, well, this book is them distilled down and then amplified. This is the Team W people clamor for on their book tours and yet so many reviews bemoan that this isn't what they wanted. What!?! This IS them. This is the pantomime version of them that then reveals a darker truth about the publishing industry. What I admire most about this book is that you really have to trust your fellow author, really be the best of friends, in order to do these caricatures of each other that aren't always the most flattering. I honestly don't think I could be this vulnerable and raw with another person let alone have it published, but that's the bond of this team. What's more, it's obvious that each character is one of the authors but that another of the authors wrote them. Kat is Karen, Cassie is Beatriz, and Emma is Lauren. Well, to a certain extent. But I can tell it's obviously Lauren writing Kat, so it's this fun tag team effort of exposing and making fun of each other that, if you know enough about them, just adds a whole level of fun to the book. And somehow this book is fun. It's dealing with three women who were the victims of one man and yet it's empowering and cathartic. When male authors have always been treated with more respect than their female counterparts and their indiscretions ignored it's nice to have women reclaiming the narrative. Especially when there's the predators out there, like Neil Gaiman, who need to be held to account. Here's to amusement and accountability!
In the days before the internet you'd be channel surfing, usually late at night, and find something you really liked and you'd watch as much of it as you could before you fell asleep because you never knew if you'd see it again let alone find out what it was called. After the successful airing of Colin Firth's Pride and Prejudice, on a cable channel no less, lots of shows that were originally shown on Masterpiece Theatre started showing up on cable channels late in the night to the delight of Anglophile insomniacs and night owls everywhere. Of course I'd catch them and wouldn't find out what they were until years later. Sometimes it was because I was able to accurately describe a scene to someone and they'd fill me in on what it was, hence the miniseries about deflating sheep turned out to be Far from the Madding Crowd with Colin Firth's younger brother Jonathan. But most often it was eventually an actor I recognized that got me to finally put a title to a favorite movie or series. This is how I learned the title of Louisa May Alcott's The Inheritance, because of Greg from Dharma and Greg. Also it's fabulous but nothing like the original story if you watch it and yes, that is Chilton from Gilmore Girls. So all I had to go on to find the title of The Buccaneers was that it stared the actress from Pauly Shore's Son in Law. To more knowledgeable people, that would be Carla Gugino, to me it was Crawl's love interest. I might have seen that movie a few too many times. So once I finally knew the name of the miniseries I obviously bought it, no questions about watching it first. This is everything an Anglophile growing up in America wishes for, that they go to England and are wooed by the most eligible of bachelors. Oh the cast, Michael Kitchen, Jenny Agutter, Connie Booth, Mira Sorvino, Greg Wise, and James Frain before he made it his lifelong ambition, or so I assume, to be in every science fiction show I've ever watched. And the houses! Yes, they DO film at Castle Howard, made immortal by Brideshead Revisited. Oh dear, I think writing this has convinced me I need to go watch this miniseries immediately, it's been too long.
