Giving a whole new meaning to the word "plot"

I already copped to not being a morning person, but today I brought it on myself. I got home at 1:45AM and should have gone straight to bed, but I had a chapter of Jincy Willett's novel THE WRITING CLASS left... well, you know how it goes. I had to finish it, there was a murderer on the loose!

Like the classic Agatha Christie mystery TEN LITTLE INDIANS, THE WRITING CLASS examines a group which discovers one of its members is a killer. I wasn't familiar with this term before, but the instructor in the book, a former novelist named Amy Gallup, calls this a "locked-room mystery" because the number of suspects are limited by geography. The prankster's trail indicates that he or she has to be someone in the workshop, which includes the usual suspects of thriller-writing doctor, bored twentysomething, over-eager course repeater... and a psychopath.

I cannot remember for the life of me which blogger recommended this to me, but if you're out there -- thank you. I could set it down and pick it up between shows and I still managed to keep up with the mystery, although the satire of the group writing class piqued my interest more since I have been in fiction writing classes like this. (Well, not exactly like this -- no one ever drew obscene things on any of my manuscripts.) There's also a funny subplot about Amy's blog, which she names "Go Away" and uses to post about the sexiest letter in the alphabet and her homegrown movie-book hybrids.

I don't see myself reading it again but I'd definitely be interested in checking out Willett's short stories and her novel WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD.