Join Josh's Newsletter! All the news!

Kill Your Darlings

At this mystery conference, murder is more than just another plot twist…

Nobody likes conferences, but they’re part of the job.

Millbrook House senior editor Keiran Chandler has spent years curating the best voices in crime lit, but when an unsolicited manuscript is handed to him at the Noir at the Shore mystery conference, truth collides with fiction. I Know What You Did is more than just another slush pile submission—it’s a direct threat.

U.N. Owen seems to know what really happened in Steeple Hill all those years ago. Who is Owen? How does he know these things? Clearly the mysterious author is after more than a book deal. But what?

With a potentially career-ending publishing merger on the horizon, the end of his affair with bestselling author and former homicide detective Finn Scott, and not so subtle threats from someone in his past, Keiran has a lot bigger problems than coming up with something witty to say on discussion panels.

Available Thru

I took out a bottle, dropped a couple of ice cubes from the metal ice bucket into a short tumbler. You had to love turn-down service in a high-end hotel. The ice crackled as I poured my ready-made old fashioned.

I took a long swallow, savored the burn.

It’ll be okay. You’ve survived a lot worse than this.

You should be glad it ended when it did. Before you let yourself get anymore invested in a fantasy.

Yep. Very glad about that. Could not have been gladder. In fact, I was the fucking Man from Glad.

I blinked back another burn, this time in the back of my eyes. My gaze landed on the small table in the alcove, caught the glint of lamplight on plastic. Lying next to a half empty bottle of sparkling water and an untouched plate of chocolate-covered almonds was the manuscript I’d been handed at the Stranger Than Fiction panel.

I Know What You Did.

I snorted.

Here was the solution to that Finn-sized hole in my evening. I was willing to bet money this would send me speeding off to Dreamland on a bullet train.

I picked up the manuscript, strolled over to the long cream-colored sofa in front of the fireplace, and settled on its comfortable length. I propped a throw cushion behind my head, opened the binder, adjusted my glasses, and began to read.

 

Chapter One

 

It was a full moon that night.

Two boys stood over the body.

“What do we do now?” the younger boy asked. He was seventeen. He was tall and skinny with curly black hair and gray eyes in a bony face like a skull.

I raised my brows and took another swallow of my drink. Was this AI? It had an artificial intelligence feel to it. Granted, a lot of first-time human authors had that basic generic writing style.

“I don’t know. Why did you have to kill him?” The other boy was crying. He was eighteen. He was blond and muscular and handsome. Not as handsome as the dead boy. The dead boy looked like a young Greek god had fallen from the sky and died on the rocks. One of the rocks Keiran had used to bash his head in.

Available Thru