Murder is the latest must-read in the sleepy village of Fethering. The local bookshop, Shelf Determination, has a new crime section. Its name - The Blood Shed - is, Carole Seddon thinks, rather vulgar. Then someone takes the theme a little too literally. After a tedious evening with a decidedly self-important cosy crime writer and her crime-solving cat, Jude returns for her forgotten scarf - and finds the owner's husband sprawled on the bookshop floor. Stabbed to death. There's no shortage of suspects: the victim's furious daughter. A pompous local poet with a grudge. A jealous husband. And enough simmering resentments to fill an entire bookshelf. The police have their theories. Carole and Jude have better ones. But if they are to unearth the killer, they must read very carefully between the lines . . .