Published By: Zaffre
Pages: 336
Released On: 19/06/2025
Welcome to the Killer Lines Crime Festival!
In the quaint town of Hoslewit, the biggest names in crime writing have congregated to celebrate all things bookish and murderous. With a programme packed with seminars and signings, egos and alcohol, it’s sure to be a thrilling weekend.
Author Jane Hepburn is determined this is going to be her year. She’s not quite reached the heady heights of best-sellerdom yet, but is convinced that if she can just make the right connections at the festival, it could be the start of a whole new chapter for her and her books.
Then her literary agent is killed, and Jane’s plans are derailed. But if she can solve the murder, perhaps it will provide the boost her writing career needs? If she lives to tell the tale, that is.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Zaffre for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This seemed so appropriate considering I’m going to the Harrogate crime festival this year for the first time…although I’m hoping there will be less actual murder there.
If I’m correct, this is the debut of Eve writing as E.C Nevin..
I read it late into the night as I was so desperate to find out what happened that I just couldn’t bear to put it down.
I loved that our protagonist is a….not a failed author, but maybe a sub-successful author. We tend to think of writing novels and editing etc as a glamorous world, but very few actually get the kind of money and success and fame that people think they do, and so I love that Eve has written that in, it’s more relatable.
It is such a clever novel but it’s also really fun. It doesn’t get bogged down in the seriousness of a murder mystery, and brings that lightheartedness I’ve come to expect from cosy crime novels. I think this stands up to any in that market today and I really, really enjoyed it.
There’s the perfect number of suspects. Too many and you lose count and you don’t get the time to go into detail, too few and it’s not very suspenseful. This had about 3-4 main suspects, but could realistically be any of about 7-8 of them. So Eve gets the chance to full develop each one, and drip feed us clues, before we get invested in the big reveal.
Like most crime novels, especially cosy crime, you do have to suspend belief somewhat, especially when it comes to civilians meddling with police investigations, but you don’t mind it so much. In some genres, you need everything to be just right otherwise it all falls apart. But I actually think that it’s important for cosy crime to have slightly fantastical elements, that’s why I think we like them so much because they’re quite clearly fictional, and that’s what makes it cosy.
This finishes well and there’s no real need for a sequel as such, but I think it could potentially have legs for a series, or at least novella or something looking at what happens next. I mainly don’t want to leave this world. And has bizarre as it sounds considering this is full of murder, I am even more exciting for Harrogate now.
Books By Your Bedside 