When the body of Alex Ballantyne is found in Barnes Pond the police are baffled. Who could want to kill the newly retired teacher? Investigations bring them to St Jude s, the prestigious private school where Ballantyne taught, and to the discovery that Ballantyne had been blackmailing several of his colleagues. Sex. Money. Drugs. It seems that Ballantyne knew all about his victims secrets, and they were prepared to pay to buy his silence. Is one of the St Jude s staff the killer? And, if so, which one? DI Moriarty s on the case and he s soon discovering that nothing is quite as it seems. So runs the blurb of Schooled in Murder , a crime novel written by Ben Joseph, who is found dead in Barnes Pond the morning after giving a talk as part of the Barnes Book Festival. DI Garibaldi and his team are shocked to discover that the writer has been killed in exactly the same place, and in exactly the same way, as the victim in Schooled in Murder . When they look at the novel they see more connections with real life. Ben Joseph is the pseudonym of Liam Allerton who , like the victim in his novel, is a retired teacher. And he taught at St Mark s, a school very similar to St Jude s, the school in his novel. But is that where the similarities end? How much of Allerton s own life, and the lives of those he knew, had he put into his novel? And could the clue to the killer s identity lie in its pages?

The third title in the popular DI Garibaldi series. Series has been optioned for TV by Warner Sisters

About the Author
After graduating from Oxford, Bernard O'Keeffe taught English for many years before turning to crime writing. 'The Final Round', the first DI Garibaldi novel, was published in 2021. 'Private Lessons' was published in 2023 and the third in the series, 'Every Trick in the Book', is out in February 2024. He sees Garibaldi as 'the bastard son of Morse and Montalbano' and admits to sharing some characteristics with his fictional detective, most notably Irish-Italian ancestry, an inability to drive, a love of country music and possession of a QPR season ticket.

Reviews
A first class mystery that threatens to blow apart the arrogance of a tight-knit social set. With this, his third novel, O Keeffe is on a roll to the big time. - The Daily Mail. Gentle humour, oodles of clues perfect comfort reading. - The Times. Terrific. - Robert Elm, BBC Radio London. How could any bookish fan of detective fiction resist such a premise? Well-paced, carefully plotted and written with what I can only imagine is a knowing smile, this was a delightful page-turning read. - Bookographia. A fantastic concept. - Mrs Book Burnabee. The storytelling is superb. As I was reading through, it felt like a movie playing in my head. - NetGalley.



Book Information
ISBN 9781739471606
Author Bernard O'Keeffe
Format Paperback
Page Count 354
Imprint Muswell Press
Publisher Muswell Press