"The Glass Room" by Ann Cleeves

Vera, a single detective, her parents dead, lives next to Jack and Joanne. Joanne hasn't been taking her meds and disappears. She's found at The Writers House (where residential courses are run). There's a murder of Tony Ferdinand, a guest speaker and influential critic, and Joanne is found holding the knife. She claims she has just picked it up. Then the house's owner Miranda is found dead by Nina, who's on the course. Nina's unread story has some details from the murder. Alex (in his twenties) is Miranda's son. They've been living there 15 years.

Ferdinand (lecturer) and Miranda (librarian) had been at St Ursula's college at the same time. Miranda's novel had flopped until Ferdinand praised it. Then it was televised.

Joe, married to Sal, is worried that he's neglecting the kids when working for Vera. He begins to fancy Nina, a writer. Joanna had tried to blackmail her ex-husband, an MP. Miranda's cat is killed, left in chapel like a sacrifice Nina's room is broken into. Dried apricots are left.

Publisher Chrissie decides to publish a book with pieces by Writers House people, hoping to raise money to keep the place going. The launch is at the house. After the launch finishes, the killer falls into a trap (?) attacking Nina. It's the retired local policeman. After his divorce from Margaret, Mark Winterton, didn't see enough of his daughter Lucy. She wanted to be a writer. At university she'd tried drugs. She had done a course at the Writers House. When Ferdinand was teaching there her work was savagely critiqued. She killed herself. Winterton did literature evening classes. When he heard that Ferdinand would be at the Writers House again, he decided to take revenge. He'd got ideas from Shakespeare's revenge plays.

Joanna wanted a baby and couldn't the treatment, hence the pleading letter to her ex.

Other reviews

• Mushy Cloud (I found it extremely irritating that the character of Vera Stanhope was constantly being described and fleshed out in this book. I suspect it’s because the earlier stories have been made for TV now and this is the first book to be published since the viewing public have been introduced to the stories, so the author is redefining Vera for those people ... I was let down by the ending a little too. It was very clumsy and very clunky and the revelation of the murderer was completely out of the blue. There were no red herrings along the way and there were no clues to his identity)
• rachelreadsbooks (My major issue with the books is the unrelenting fatphobic comments about Vera. Nearly every time she’s mentioned we are told she is fat. We get it! This is book five! It is really at the point where it seems like sloppy writing and unbelievable. ... I did feel like the solution here was one that was difficult to guess since we weren’t told much backstory for some of the characters. )