It all started with a scream in the night. Then there were blood splatters on the rug. But in the absence of a dead body, could the whole thing be a hoax? Especially as the Manor Hotel was hosting the ‘Murder Convention’, a periodic gathering of mystery writers. So was this a macabre game or... the perfect crime?

It all started with a scream in the night.

Then there were blood splatters on the rug.

There was a murder, it seemed, but no corpse.

Andtwo of the hotel’s guests went missing.

Which one was the victim, and which one the killer? In the absence of a dead body, could the whole thing be a hoax? Especially as the Manor Hotel was hosting the ‘Murder Convention’, a periodic gathering of mystery writers. So was this a macabre game or... the perfect crime?

No shortage of candidates to tackle the case, with some guests putting their oar inaccording to their own pet theory; the police in the persons of DS Mundie and DCI Gilford doing the same; and DaisyHayes, the hotel’s resident sleuth, the only one tokeep her head cool. She and her husband hadto sort the foibles fromthe facts to uncoverthe truth.

Granted, this is not a hefty tome, but how Nick Aaron manages to pack it with twists, cliffhangers and red herrings! Apparently he strongly believes that an author shouldn’t be ashamed of writing brief novels instead of bloated ones.