In Edna O'Brien's twentieth work of fiction, an elderly widow on her deathbed in rural Ireland tells the story of her life-a story of love, family, estrangement, and motherhood.

To look at her, one would never think suburbanite homemaker Jane Jeffry would be interested in murder and mayhem. But given the corpses she's come across she's practically an expert on the subject. Which is why Jane's booking down to a nearby mystery writers' convention to mingle with the brightest lights of literary crime, and maybe drum up some interest in her own recently completed manuscript. But when a famous ego-squashing editor keels over at...