Publication Date: July 21, 2026
In the latest thrilling mystery from Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author Carol Goodman, a writers’ conference at an Italian castle turns deadly when a killer begins using a husband-and-wife writing team’s novel as a blueprint for murder.
Fred and Thea Morgan-Lane are the envy of the mystery community, the perfect partners in life and in writing. Together they coauthor the wildly successful Death Takes a Holiday series, and they’ve been invited to the Italian castle where it all began for a mystery conference celebrating their first novel, Death Takes the Castle.
But their story isn’t quite the fairytale it seems to outsiders. Twenty years and twenty books after they met, Thea wants out. Their marriage and partnership haven’t been working for some time, and what better place to announce the end of the series than where it started?
Except shortly after their arrival at the beautiful Castellarosa, a shocking death takes place when the wrong person drinks a cocktail meant for Thea. The stunned conference-goers put it down to an unknown allergy, but Thea isn’t so sure. Could someone be trying to kill her? Perhaps her loving husband isn’t as ok with their series ending as he pretends, or maybe Nadine, the upstart young author who is vying to take Thea’s place, wants her out of the way. Suddenly, it seems like everyone has a motive, and when a second death occurs, a disturbing pattern emerges—these deaths aren’t random, they’re following the murders in Death Takes a Castle exactly. Murders that Thea and Fred wrote.
In order to save the day—and maybe even their marriage—the unhappy couple will have to work together to figure out who is using their book as a blueprint for a killing spree. That is, if they can trust the person they’ve spent twenty years plotting murders with…
Set in Italy at a writer’s conference, Our Marriage is Murder by Carol Goodman is a mystery thriller highlighting a treasure hunt.
Full of book references, authors, and wannabe authors, it takes place in a medieval castle that had been a monastery. The main characters are married, but are pulling apart. They met twenty years earlier and decided to become writing partners, writing themed mysteries centered on death.
Thea and Fred are basically estranged but have to finish their last book together. He’s decided his life will take a new direction, but is that what they both really want? When murders start occurring as the clues are drawn from the first book they had written, pointing towards where the treasure is, where will it end? Especially since they never found any treasure twenty years before and their book is fiction, isn’t it?
We meet many characters on the surface who are woven throughout the story. The history of the castle, some of its predecessors, including the nuns, are discussed. We trek all over the grounds looking for clues and the treasure and find a lot of red herrings. The author writes vivid descriptions, lots of Latin, and the translations. There are twists and turns to the story along with many surprises. Most of the loose ends are tied up, and there is closure with the discovery of the murderer and with Thea and Fred deciding to move forward after they write the last chapter of their last book in their twenty-book series. But with so many historical and mythological events and characters mentioned, the story did not always flow well.
Our Marriage is Murder has dual contexts, with a beautiful backdrop in Italy and so many murders to solve. 
Carol Goodman’s rich and prolific career includes novels such as The Widow’s House and The Night Visitor, winners of the 2018 and 2020 Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley, NY.
