The Writers' Room

Clara Newsome was twenty-two when she died. A prodigiously talented writer, she'd seemed destined to take the literary world by storm.

Twenty years later, her four best friends have done rather well for themselves. Now successful screenwriters and producers, they've finally decided to adapt Clara's only novel into a television series, recruiting Clara's son Xavier to help. A creative retreat in a remote mansion in the NSW Southern Highlands, ten days of brainstorming, and a story that's been waiting two decades to be told. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. Because housekeeper Barb Young has just found a body at the bottom of a nearby cliff.

The police are happy to call it an accident, but Barb is not the sort of woman who settles for a convenient explanation. As she starts asking questions nobody wants to answer, she discovers that everyone in the writers' room has something to hide. And that the real story of Clara's death might not be the one they've all been telling.

James O'Loghlin's twisty, suspenseful and darkly humorous crime novel follows unlikely amateur detective Barb Young—who readers first met in Liars—on a new adventure, as she sets about solving a mysterious death with charm, stealth and the world's most disarming interrogation technique.