The Ending Writes Itself

The buzzy locked room mystery crime thriller everyone is talking about for 2026

'Secrets don't stay secret for long in publishing'

Six authors.

One private island.

Seventy-two hours to write the ending that will change their lives.

‘This is a house of novelists, not murderers. You dream up crimes. You don’t commit them.’

‘But a writer has. And so, who better than a writer to catch them?’

World famous author Arthur Fletch is dead. His final novel, the most anticipated book in history, remains unfinished. But the ending won’t write itself.

Fletch’s publisher, Merriweather Press, has invited six authors to Fletch’s private island in Scotland. Authors whose books have never had the big marketing budgets or publicity opportunities. In other words, midlist. And they’re about to be presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.

Whoever writes a worthy ending will receive one million dollars, and a further one million dollars for a new three-book contract.

They have just seventy-two hours, with no access to the outside world, just a typewriter and a blank page. All they have to do is write…

Starting is often the hardest part. But getting to the end could be murder.

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‘Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None meets Yellowface… Great fun!’ Kate Mosse

‘A great locked-room thriller and a brilliant satire on the publishing industry’ Karin Slaughter

‘Fiendishly clever and compulsively readable… An absolute must read’ Ellery Lloyd

‘Funny, razor sharp and scarily relatable’ Sarah Crossan