Publication Day Desk

We love asking our authors to show us the desk where they write. In celebration of the UK publication of Elly Griffiths's The Last Word by Quercus today, we're featuring Elly's desk on our home page, complete with pinboard showing her memories and inspirations: her parents, Bruce Springsteen, Marx... 

The Last Word is a crime novel for book lovers — although be warned: it does inject an element of jeopardy into the idea of attending a Creative Writing course in an isolated country house, or a cosy book group in Brighton. Featuring characters from The Stranger Diaries, The Postscript Murders and Bleeding Heart Yard (the group of friends who have started to feel like the reader's own), it hides its clues in the obituary pages of The Times and Guardian. But although it's about death and last words, it's really a novel about the zest for life of its amateur detectives.

Elly Griffiths is on tour in the UK this week. The Last Word will be published in America by Mariner on 23 April (the birthday of William Shakespeare, also featured on the pinboard).

Keep an eye out for the new episode of Elly's podcast The Plot Thickens, coming soon.