The Mystery Writer: A Novel

by Sulari Gentill

Genres: Thrillers; Mystery; Crime Fiction; Suspense; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

"Gentill nimbly balances the plausible with the outlandish in this sly thriller set in the publishing world." —Publishers Weekly

From 2023 Edgar Award nominee and bestselling author Sulari Gentill comes a literary thriller about an aspiring writer who meets and falls in love with her literary idol—only to find him murdered the day after she gave him her manuscript to read. 

There's nothing easier to dismiss than a conspiracy theory—until it turns out to be true

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother's doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer?

What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die. 

 

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Release date: March 19, 2024

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Print pages: 388

Sample

PROLOGUE

He awoke early on the day he died, lying unmoving for a time under the weight of frustration, the inertia of despair.

The grief was crushing. The realisation that he’d lost it all. Over something that should have been nothing.

He sat up. The bookcase was blurred, and though he tried to pull himself together, it remained so. Slowly, stiffly, he rose from the couch on which he’d spent the night and grabbed a book from the middle shelf. His first novel, once everything—the culmination of dreams, an admission ticket to it all. Until she’d torn it down.

He ran his fingertips over the glossy jacket—the letters of his name were slightly raised. He’d never see that again, never feel it. “Hit the road, Jack, don’t you come back…” The tune was harsh on his lips, self-mocking and bitter. “No more…no more…no more…”

A suit had been laid out for him—shirt, shoes, even boxers. Every last thing had been considered, every outcome anticipated, every decision already made.

There was nothing left to do but die.

CHAPTER 1

Caleb cursed in both outrage and triumph. He knew it! There had been something about that congressman’s eyes when he’d addressed the rally—a flatness. Like he wasn’t really there. Like he was dead. It made sense. Caleb felt physically slammed by the realisation. He’d seen it. It was proof. This was big.

He stared at the screen, rereading, his pulse accelerating with every word. He pounded the table with his fist. “Yes!”

The Shield was growing, strengthening. More and more people were waking up, becoming aware. But Caleb had been there from the beginning—since Primus posted his first panicked cry for help. He’d seen it, known instinctively that there was something to it. God, whoever Primus was, he had guts, he was a patriot.

Caleb got up from the computer. His mom needed to see this.

He hesitated then.

Was it necessary to have this fight now? His mom was looking in the wrong directions—south toward the Mexican border and north to the Canadians. But in preparing for invasion, she was probably doing what needed to be done for insurrection. His brothers, too—well most of them—each with his own idea of how the end would come and ready to fight. They would become part of The Shield when it was required, even if they were not expecting this.

Caleb fell back onto his bed and placed his arms behind his head. If they knew, they would take over. It would be Caleb do this, Caleb do that…like he wasn’t the one who’d known from the beginning. They would forget that.

Perhaps it would be better to wait. That way, when it started he’d be the one behind the wheel; they’d have to listen to him. He imagined his mom’s surprise and then her admiration as her youngest led them all into battle. His brothers would realize he’d grown up. Well, all except one, he supposed, but even he would have to come round eventually, turn to his little brother for help.

So for now he would keep his mouth shut. Wait and learn what he could.

Caleb blew on his 

fist, his eyes bright. This would be epic.

Theodosia Benton stood on her big brother Gus’s doorstep, pausing to enjoy the relief of a long journey’s end. But the breath she let out was snatched back as bedlam exploded onto the porch in the form of a massive hellhound of some sort. Though not, as a rule, frightened of dogs, Theo was unsure of her welcome, and tired, and still a little overwhelmed by the enormity of what she had done, and so she disintegrated a little, pounding on the door 

in tears and panic as the dog tried to raise the dead. A few neighbors poked their heads out to investigate what was apparently a murder in progress.

Gus Benton had been entertaining. After a few moments of scrabbling for clothes, he opened the door.

“Theo? What the hell…?” He stared at her.

Theo tried to make herself heard, but it was futile. The dog was relentless, determined to alert the entire block that there was someone on the threshold. She placed her hands over her ears, cringing away from the din.

Gus broke off to calm his dog, and eventually he managed to persuade it to stop barking. The comparative silence that followed provided an opportunity to explain, but now everything Theo had practiced on the flights and bus trips that had brought her from Sydney to Lawrence in the Sunflower State of Kansas, was lost to her. She stuttered apologies for not having told him she was coming.

“Come on.” Gus grabbed her bags and motioned her to follow him inside, where he introduced Pam, the young lady wearing his shirt and little else. Pam didn’t stay long. A distressed girl with luggage, even if she was just a sister, was probably less than romantic.

When they were alone, Gus asked again. “What are you doing here, Theo? Do Mum and Dad know? What the hell is going on?”

And so, she told him what she’d done.

“What do you mean you left uni?” he asked. “You’ve only got another couple of years to graduation. Surely it can’t be that bad?”

“It is.”

“But you always wanted to be an attorney.”

Theo smiled faintly. “Solicitor,” she said. He’d become such an American. “Gus, I was eighteen when I enrolled in law school. I’m not sure I even knew what a lawyer really was. I just wanted to be like you, to do what you were doing so that you’d…” She shook her head.

Gus exhaled. “Okay, I get it. But there are lots of people in Australia who aren’t lawyers. What are you doing here?”

“I…I thought…” She told him about the creative writing classes she’d taken, the story she wanted to write. The words stumbled out, a confession: her increasing disinterest in the law, the ever-growing sense of panic and loneliness, and the feeling that she just couldn’t face another day, another lecture, until all she could do was run. Then Theo made herself stop talking, knowing the frantic explanations, the pleading justifications made her sound quite mad, and she needed Gus to believe that she was at least sane. She bit her lip to stop herself from filling the silence with words.

For a moment he said nothing, simply looking at her as if he were trying to decide if she was really herself. And then he groaned. “Bloody hell, Theo. You could have just said this on the phone, and I would have picked you up at Fort Worth.”

“You would have told me to stay…to get my degree.”

“I’m your big brother

I have to say that… But I still would have met you at the airport when you ignored me.” He told her she could choose from the two unused bedrooms, though he recommended the one farthest from the bathroom, as the pipes had a tendency to make noises in the night.

At first, Theo wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “I left,” she said slowly. “I told the dean I wouldn’t be coming back. I’m not going to be a lawyer, Gus. I’ve half a degree, which qualifies me for just about nothing…but I can’t—”

“You said.” He yawned. “Are you hungry? I’m starving…”

“But the trust—”

Gus shrugged. The university education of Gus and Theo Benton was financed through a complicated trust set up by their late grandfather—who had been quite an eminent member of the American Bar. When his only daughter had eloped with a penniless Australian musician, Robert Maclean had cut her off from his life and his fortune, but he had hoped through the trust to retrieve his grandchildren, to lure them back into his world.

“I’ll speak to the trustees, if you like,” he offered, unperturbed. “Work out a stay of execution for the rest of the year.”

“I’m never going back! He’s dead now—he won’t care!”

Gus smiled. “If anything could make the old bastard come back…” Their grandfather had chosen futures for them, and even from beyond the grave had managed to dictate their lives, through the terms of his trust. Gus had taken the path of least resistance, but he’d clearly not had the courage of his little sister. Still, he’d come out an attorney, and so he tried to preserve an out clause for Theo. “How about we hold off telling the trustees until we absolutely have to? There’s nothing to be gained by giving them extra notice. I’ll just tell them you’re taking the rest of the year off to help me with a case and gain some invaluable industry experience.”

“They won’t believe that!”

“Making people believe is what I do,” Gus replied, looking at his cell phone. “We could get takeout… What do you feel like?”

Despite herself, Theo smiled.

“You have until

Christmas to write your novel,” he continued. “Then at least you can tell them you’re not quitting law school to be a bum…though that might be quite satisfying.” Gus pulled out his wallet and handed her a debit card to his account in case she needed money. “The password is vegemite.”

Theo took the card, too overcome with gratitude and relief to thank him. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes, but her resolve to hold herself together crumbled. The dog, whose name was apparently Horse, licked her face.

Gus handed her a box of tissues and ordered pizza.

“Why…you…so nice?” Theo spluttered finally and somewhat ineloquently for someone who wanted to write. There were more than six years between her and Gus, and they had not lived in the same house or country for more than a decade. He’d left when she was ten years old. She’d grown up in his shadow, admired and resented him in equal measure, missed him, hated him, and loved him… But she wasn’t really sure she knew him the way you normally knew family. How could she? “You’re not just humoring me, are you, Gus? Because you want me to stop wailing? I know it doesn’t seem that way, but I’m not having a breakdown. I promise I—”

Gus laughed. “Yeah, I’m just buying time till the doctor gets here to sedate you…” He waited till she lifted her eyes to his. “Look, Theo, you don’t have to be so well adjusted all the time. You’re allowed to react to what happened.”

“I’m not—”

“I know. But you are allowed, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Okay?”

Theo nodded. She had turned to Gus instinctively, as she had when she was a child. But now she remembered that the instinct had never proved false. And she breathed out. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we were supposed to be lawyers… I didn’t think you’d understand why I suddenly thought I could be a novelist.”

He shrugged. “I wanted to be a professional surfer.”

The matter was thus settled. Theo took the room farthest from the bathroom, as recommended.

The old house that Gus had bought a couple of streets away from what used to be Crane, Hayes and Purcell, and which was now Crane, Hayes and Benton, was badly in need of renovation. It had probably never been a grand house, but in its current state of decline, it was definitely the worst house on the best street…or at least the best street that Gus could afford. Gus’s financial reserves had apparently been so drastically depleted by the cost of buying out Gerard Purcell that anything more than plumbing and electricity was deemed nonessential. Even so, he’d adamantly refused to take any money

from his sister.

“You came here to write a novel, not to work in a sandwich shop so you can pay rent,” he’d said firmly. “As long as you make it absolutely clear to any woman who comes by that you are my sister, we’ll be square.”

They talked about what to tell their parents and decided that until Theo’s decision was irreversible, saying nothing was best. As much as Paul and Beth Benton spurned such things as convention, job security, and wealth, they had been somewhat relieved that their choices were not going to be imposed upon their offspring, that they could reject the capitalist system without depriving their children. Theo feared that telling them would mean they’d want her to come home to meditate and reconnect with something or other, perhaps pick up a tambourine and join her father’s act.

As the elder Bentons had originally migrated to Tasmania to join an effort to save the island’s forests from development, they had, over the years, been arrested several times trying to do just that. Consequently, criminal records kept them out of the United States, and their aversion to modern technology made contact sporadic and difficult, hasty, fragmented exchanges over bad lines. As a result, avoiding any discussion of the fact that Theo’s presence in Lawrence was not a coincidental short visit, was easier that one might think, and the escape of Theodosia Benton was made with barely a ripple.

In the days that followed, Theo cleaned the house, removing years of grime, attacking mold and fixing what she could, as she told herself she was earning her keep. She sanded and repainted, washed and cooked until Gus, somewhat unceremoniously, threw her out.

“Get out.”

“What?”

He finished knotting his tie. “I want you to find somewhere else you can write.”

Theo stared at him, shocked. “But you said I could—”

“You need to have somewhere to go in the morning, Theo. As much as I appreciate this manic cleaning handyman phase you’re going through, you need to find somewhere to write where you won’t be distracted by this moldering pile.”

“Oh.” Theo’s heart steadied. “But I can still live here?”

Gus looked at her as if she were an idiot. “Meet me at the office at six—we’ll go for a drink.” He grabbed his briefcase and sunglasses. “A bar!” he

 added suddenly. “Always thought a bar would be a great place to write a novel. You should check out a few.”

And so, Theo had gone in search of an office, and she’d found Benders.

 

CHAPTER 2

Caleb paced the room. It was unbearable to know what was happening and not be able to help directly.

If only he could find out who Primus was—perhaps there would something he could do…people he could watch…or research. He could hack most things, and he wasn’t afraid to stand up and be counted. But, of course, Primus’s identity had to remain secret. Caleb had no doubt the sick psychos behind the Frankenstein Project would kill the man who was telling the world what they were up to, if they knew who he was. Jesus, this was wild.

Caleb sat back down before the computer screen and read the comments on the post—words of support and outrage, corroborative accounts, related reports—a growing movement that would one day save the world against the depravity and evil that Primus called the Minotaur. They were getting ready.

Caleb was compiling a consolidated list of all the corporates Primus mentioned from time to time. Every couple of posts, there was an organization that had not been named before, to add. CrusaderCat15 had created a database of missing persons, particularly children, and was cross-referencing last sightings against the property holdings of the corporates in that area. MoonSoldier1 was doing some work on linking the Frankenstein Project to particular political elites, the powerful men and women behind the Minotaur. There were others going through every post, decoding, looking for hidden messages. They were all working together, sharing what they discovered, and keeping an eye on one another, just in case. Caleb assumed the Minotaur would be looking for anybody helping Primus.

 

LABYRINTH 32

Experiments on the dead continue. The Frankenstein Project has yielded results and those behind it have been rewarded with gold and power. To date only the dead have been defiled for this purpose, but yesterday it was proposed that living subjects might further improve results. Watch yourselves, and the children. The representatives are complicit. People will start to disappear. The snatchers have been trained by the military in a secret location somewhere in the desert. Perhaps I, too, will be snatched, carved up, and remade. It is for more than myself I fear. I am the only person able to navigate the maze who is willing to breach the secrecy protocols that protect this corporate depravity. The people have a right to know. The sacrifices have a right to fight. Beware the icons: Disney, Coca-Cola, CNN. They are friends of the Minotaur. Prepare. Soon we will rise to lay siege to the Labyrinth. More later.

We Know What We Know.

Primus

Benders Bar in downtown Lawrence generally came to life when the hard drinkers arrived at about five in the afternoon. Until then it was quiet, untroubled by the presence of those who lingered far longer than the odd coffee entitled. The fact that Benders even opened before 11 a.m. was unusual, and the result of a dispute between the Bradley sisters, who owned it, one of whom called it a café, while other insisted it was a bar. Consequently, the hours and nature of the business had been divided, though over the years the line between café and bar had become blurred. The extended hours did however make it perfect for those who required an informal office from which they did not need to decamp by midafternoon. As far as writers’ refuges went, it was very acceptable, if not ideal.

Initially, Theo assumed that the café and bar had been named in honor of simple alcoholic excess, but a plaque just inside the door identified a much more sinister inspiration. Apparently, the Bloody Benders had been a family of serial killers who, in the late 1800s, murdered travelers who stopped at their inn for a meal or drink. It seemed a strangely passive-aggressive choice for the name of a café-bar, but there was a perverse humor about it that reminded Theo of home. And as much as she had chosen this path, memories of home were not always unwelcome.

The establishment’s decor played shamelessly on the dubious notoriety of its namesakes. Dim lighting, macabre memorabilia, and Victorian flourishes—it evoked conspiracy in a less-than-subtle theme-park sort of way. Nooks and booths allowed privacy, even secrecy. A hammer dipped in red paint, a similarly embellished cut-throat razor, and a collection of old arsenic bottles, completed the picture of a murderer’s den.

Within a week Theo had staked an almost inalienable claim on the corner booth. Each day she arrived by nine, ordered coffee, unpacked her laptop, her notes, and the dog-eared Jack Chase novel Airborne, which was her muse, of sorts. It had been signed by the author: “For Theo, May the words come quickly and in the right order. In writerly solidarity, Jack.”

Theo had never actually met Jack Chase, though as a teenager she’d read everything he’d ever written and seen all the movies that had been made from his books. Years ago, Gus had stumbled into a book signing in New York, a day or two after her birthday, which he had until then forgotten. He’d waited in line to ask the author to sign

a book for his little sister, who had just turned fourteen. Why Chase had dedicated the book as he had was something of a mystery… Gus liked to claim that he’d said his sister “had a face like a prizefighter,” which Chase had misheard as “prize-winning writer,” but Theo was almost certain he’d made that up. At fourteen the inscription had seemed funny; now Theo thought it prophetic. Perhaps it was simply that she’d read it so many times that she’d come to believe it. Whatever the reason, the book had become her charm.

Soon Theo came to know Laura, the extensively pierced server, who would ask her to say random words so she could hear them in “Australian”; Chic, who liked to listen to true crime podcasts in between and sometimes while she brought customers their coffee; and a couple of the barflies who would come in early to avoid the university crowd. There were others, too, who sat at the tables rather than the bar.

One man occupied the table by the window most days, when she came in to write. She hadn’t known he was Dan Murdoch, of course, not at first. He was just another café refugee seeking solace in caffeine and anonymity. In the beginning, they paid little attention to each other. After a week or two, he’d raise his eyes and nod or smile in some acknowledgment of recurrent encounter. He was older but not old, handsome in a quiet sort of way, with a beard cut close to the planes of his face. The hair at his temples had begun to lighten with gray. He generally wore jeans with an open-collared shirt and a leather jacket; his glasses were modern but conservative. Still, he might have been a serial killer, for all she knew. She’d returned his smile briefly and retreated to her own corner to write. At some point, a quiet familiarity set in. The nods became “Good morning.”

On more than one occasion he was joined by a woman in a suit—beautifully tailored, discreetly expensive. She was so startlingly attractive that she didn’t seem to belong to the real world. Theo tried not to watch them, obviously at least, and yet she knew that he seemed chastised and contrite in the woman’s presence, and sometimes frustrated. Perhaps he was her errant lover, or she his parole officer. But the woman was not there often. Mostly he sat alone drinking coffee and glued to his phone or his tablet. Occasionally, she caught him looking her way, but he’d never hold her gaze long enough to invite anything more than a fleeting smile.

It wasn’t until Theo dropped Airborne as she hefted her laptop and notes into Benders one day, that they had their first conversation. He retrieved the book and carried it to her table. He glanced at the cover as if it amused him. Theo felt vaguely defensive. But he didn’t ask about the book.

“What are you working on?”

She stuttered, embarrassed. “A novel,” she said in the end, cringing at the sound of it. Who did she think she was, calling what she was doing a novel? Surely, he’d laugh.

He didn’t.

“Do you want your coffee here, or at your usual table, Dan?” Chic, the waitress, held up a tray with single cup.

He’d glanced at Theo. “Please,” she replied a little uncertainly. He was probably not a serial killer.

“Here,” he told Chic. “And the usual for…?”

“Theo. Theo Benton.”

He introduced himself then, and she recognized that she was speaking to Dan Murdoch—the novelist, whose name was acclaimed enough to appear on his books in a bigger type than the title. Now she was mortified. She’d just told Dan Murdoch that she was writing a novel. She could feel the color in her face. “I’m not a real writer,” she said quickly.

He smiled. “I must say it’s been a while since I ordered coffee for a figment of my imagination.”

“No…I mean…I meant…”

He laughed. “I know. I guess I’m not a real writer anymore either.”

“But you’re—”

“Becoming a writer is one thing; staying one is entirely another beast.”

“Oh…” Theo wasn’t sure she understood, but Dan did not seem inclined to explain.

Instead, he put her out of her misery by asking about her work. Specific questions about genre and theme, how long she’d been working on the project. Theo’s shyness receded gradually as she spoke about the historical mystery she was writing, set in the twenties in Canberra, a city that was still under construction. She told him that she had once been at law school in the Australian bush capital, which she found had a strange soul for a city—the ancient lands of the Ngunnawal people buried beneath the modern façade of a

planned metropolis—and how that had planted a seed that would not leave her be.

He seemed interested—really interested—as opposed to polite or amused or merely kind, and Theo found a new pleasure in talking of the ideas which had been crowding her thoughts. She had previously only spoken of her work to Gus, and even then, with restraint, conscious of boring him with the imaginings that consumed her at the moment. But Dan gave her permission to effuse; indeed, he drew out the depth of her obsession with the story she was fashioning from scraps of history and the wanderings of her mind. And the morning passed unnoticed as they talked.

He’d asked her about Airborne as they stepped out to buy sandwiches for lunch. “They made it into a film, didn’t they?”

“I was fourteen when I read it,” Theo said, a little worried that he would think her literary taste immature.

He flinched. “I was a lot older than that, I’m afraid. What did you think?”

Theo hesitated, a little surprised that the book interested him and wondering if he meant the work or the man. Jack Chase’s career had fallen to scandal—allegations of sexual misconduct that had seen him become a pariah, dropped by agents and publishers, destocked by bookstores. She wasn’t aware of what Chase had done, exactly—she couldn’t even remember if it had been criminal or simply unsavory, and she wasn’t sure if it should have changed her mind about the book she had loved when she was fourteen. She opened the volume to the title page and showed him the inscription, ...