Shakespeare in the Park with Murder

by Nicole Dieker

It's a summer of doublets and couplets, Capulets and corpses! Larkin may think she's switched from detecting to directing, but there are surprises in store as she and Ed find themselves spending four hot weeks camping with the cast. When Larkin Day gets hired as the Interim Artistic Director of the Summer Shakespeare Festival, she expects to spend her summer working with actors and designers as they put together an outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet. She doesn't expect to spend her summer solving yet another murder-but when the actor playing Romeo is poisoned, Larkin agrees to play detective one more time. Not because she thinks the show must go on. Not even because she wants to save her job. Larkin takes the case-bringing along her boyfriend Ed, her best friend Anni, and the mysterious Jay Malhotra-because she knows the poison wasn't meant for Romeo. Somebody is out to kill Juliet-and they don't care who else gets murdered along the way.

260 pages, Paperback

Published June 27, 2023

About the author

Nicole Dieker is a writer, teacher, and musician. She began her writing career as a full-time freelancer with a focus on personal finance and habit formation; she launched her fiction career with The Biographies of Ordinary People, a definitely-not-autobiographical novel that follows three sisters from 1989 to 2016.

Currently, Dieker writes the Larkin Day mystery series and the perzine WHAT IT IS and WHAT TO DO NEXT. She also maintains an active freelance career; her work has appeared in Vox, Morning Brew, Lifehacker, Bankrate, Haven Life, Popular Science, and more. Dieker spent five years as writer and editor for The Billfold, a personal finance blog where people had honest conversations about money.

Dieker lives in Quincy, Illinois with the great love of her life, his piano, and their garden.

Reviews

[Zach Rosenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicole Dieker has roared onto the mystery scene with her Larkin Day series. Featuring a flawed protagonist solving murders while determining exactly what she wants to do with her life, Larkin has gone through two such instances to date and opens the third book in the best place of her life so far. Hired on for the Summer Shakespeare Festival, in a committed and happy relationship with her boyfriend Ed, Larkin is thrust onto the detective scene after the actor playing Romeo is poisoned.

Dieker's style of writing is pure fun. She brings a sense of unique whimsy and delight to the cozy mystery genre, but her true skill lies in writing her characters. After three books, Larkin remains a flawed, but completely likable and heroic individual with wits and grit abound. Dieker doesn't shy away from exploring those flaws but shows Larkin growing as a person all through the sleuthing.

And the sleuthing is always terrific. Dieker knows how to construct a fun and unique mystery that keeps the pages turning with sensible twists all the way through.

She's a real name to watch and one of the best about.

[Jennie Rosenblum · Rating 4 out of 5]

While browsing a delightful indie bookstore in Quincy, Illinois, I asked for a local author recommendation—and I’m so glad I did! They handed me this gem, and even though it wasn’t the first in the series, I had no trouble diving right in.

This cozy-ish mystery had all the ingredients I love: a touch of summer theatre, a recurring Romeo and Juliet with a rather unfortunate tendency to get themselves killed, and a supporting cast packed with just the right amount of delightful quirk. The setting and characters pulled me in, and the mix of humor and mystery kept me turning pages with a grin.

A great reminder that local recs can lead to unexpected favorites!

[Ryan Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book in this mystery series which features Larkin Day. Larkin is helping out with a production of Romeo and Juliet for her small town Shakespeare in the Park. The lead actor playing Romeo ends up actually poisoned. At this point working is still juggling what she wants to do with her life, her relationship with Ed Jackson, and solving murders. It was fun for the third outing in the series.