It is summer in Port Dundas, and D.I. Hazel Micallef is recovering from back surgery in the home of her ex and his wife. The Westmuir Record begins to publish its semi-annual, eight-part short story. This time it's a murder story. But after the publication of the third installment, someone commits a murder exactly like the one described in the paper. Suspicion falls on the writer, but he's as horrified as anyone is to learn that someone has modeled a crime on his fiction.