Fest — Mark McCrum

At the start of one of the English summer's highlights, the annual literary festival in the pretty little country town of Mold-on-Wold, famous critic Bryce Peabody is found dead in his bed at the White Hart Hotel. This shocking discovery is made by his much-younger girlfriend, the lovely Priya Kaur, returning late from a party. At first it seems as if fifty-something Bryce might have succumbed to a heart attack, but when the police arrive, and forensics teams descend, it seems as if there might be a more sinister reason. Bryce is not popular with the many writers he has insulted in print over the years -- and several of them are staying up in Mold for the festival. Could it be that one of them has taken a bitter revenge? Or perhaps there's a more personal reason? Bryce's private life has never been simple, and two of his exes are also up in Mold this weekend. Neither of them are happy about Priya -- and what they see as her schemes for Bryce's future. Unable to help himself, crime writer Francis Meadowes, who is also staying at the White Hart, is drawn into a role he knows only from his own fiction, that of amateur detective. He soon finds himself one step ahead of the police, and when there is a second shocking death, he realizes that he may be in a race against time to find the killer before anyone else is targeted. Fest is both a wry, insider's look at the contemporary literary world and a gripping murder mystery that will keep you guessing till the very end.