The Circle -- Peter Lovesey

Colleen Mondor, you STINKER.  The last thing I need is a new author to read, and what do you give me? 

A new author to read.

The Circle (and I suspect, Peter Lovesey in general) is the perfect choice for those of us who have read every single Agatha Christie book six times over and still go back for more.

It's also a fun one for book nerds:  The mystery revolves around the murder of a publisher.  All of the suspects?  Members of a writer's group.  It's the kind of mystery where you change your mind about who you suspect every three pages.

Snappy dialogue, eccentric characters, red herrings, excellent quotations* and jabs at the industry abound.

Wicked fun.

*Chapter 19:  Anyway, [poetry] is not the most important thing in life, is it?  Frankly, I'd much rather lie in a hot bath sucking boiled sweets and reading Agatha Christie, which is just exactly what I intend to do as soon as I get home.

Dylan Thomas, quoted by Joan Wyndham in Love is Blue (1986)