A serial killer is targeting female college students, leaving their bodies posed as famous women from literature. The police are at a loss with the clues, but a book-obsessed professor attempts to take on the killer, along with a cast of dogged academics and story-hungry journalists, perfect for fans of the Magpie Murders and The Woman in the Window.
 
Near a small college campus, a student is found strangled in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town. She's been posed to look like a painting of Hamlet's Ophelia, the scene taunting the police with messages that they don't understand. Detective Ian Carter is known as a strait-laced cop, but seeing the girl's body leaves him shaken and uncertain of where to turn—until a chance meeting with a charmingly awkward literature professor ends with her accidentally seeing, and solving, a clue left by the killer.
 
Professor Emma Reilly knows that the books she loves might hold the key to unraveling the killer's crimes, now that a second murder has been discovered, with the victim posed as Lady Shallot this time. However, when the murderer strikes too close to home and kills a third student, one from Emma’s classes, she realizes that the safety of her insular life might be nothing more than an illusion. She must find the strength to confront a killer who is turning the stories she loves into lurid scenes of death.
 
With its dual POV, Murder by the Book features a neurodivergent character in a timely exploration of the current tensions in crime fiction. It's a compelling mystery with notes of dark academia that’s perfect for spooky season and beyond.
 
Contributor Bio(s)
 
Amie Schaumberg is an English professor living in Washington State. This is her debut novel.