With Baby South-Brown’s arrival just around the corner, Julia joins the local book club during her maternity leave. What better way to rest, relax, and connect with a few of Peridale’s book-loving citizens? But when one of the book clubbers dies during a meeting, everyone’s a suspect.

Meanwhile, with a missing father and a murdered woman already on Barker’s plate – not to mention the poison pen letters demanding his return to novel-writing, or else, arriving with alarming frequency – Barker’s biggest case yet as a private investigator gets more complicated with each passing day. And the Braxton Hicks contractions, baby shower drama, and “Ten Things Every Father Must Do To Prepare For Baby!!” articles aren’t helping matters.

With Barker and Julia’s lives looking disturbingly like one of the novels Barker no longer writes, it will take their combined investigative skills to get to the bottom of the mysteries surrounding them.