Alex Pavesi knows the genre inside out. One of the year's most entertaining crime novels' SUNDAY TIMES, CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH 'When did you last read a genuinely original thriller? The wait is over' A. J. FINN, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window 'An elegantly structured, intellectually challenging and completely unique thriller that grips like a vice' SOPHIE HANNAH All murder mysteries follow a simple set of rules. Grant McAllister, an author of crime fiction and professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out. But that was thirty years ago. Now he's living a life of seclusion on a quiet Mediterranean island - until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor, knocks on his door. His early work is being republished and together the two of them must revisit those old stories: an author, hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it. But as she reads, Julia is unsettled to realise that there are things in the stories that don't make sense. Intricate clues that seem to reference a real murder, one that's remained unsolved for thirty years. If Julia wants answers, she must triumph in a battle of wits with a dangerously clever adversary. But she must tread carefully: she knows there's a mystery, but she doesn't yet realise there's already been a murder . . .