Plot

Amy, professor in "Who Dunnit" and speaker at Teachable Talk in Seattle, meets her ex there. She also meets the owner of a crime solving software, who's later found dead. Amy and her detective friend start investigating.

The professor and the dectective head to Seattle for a teachable talk weekend on murder. Some participants take the theme a bit to seriously as intrigue insues. The added tension of former lovers strains the investigation as ties become increasingly tangled.

Crime fiction specialist Amy Winslow, the Chair of the Literature Department at Elmstead College in Garrison, Washington, is in Seattle with her father Graham Winslow, Professor Emeritus and novelist of the successful Atticus Keller crime series, as she has been asked to give a presentation at a Teachable Talks (T2) conference by Tim Bishop, the founder of T2. Garrison PD Detective Travis Burke becomes quietly agitated in this situation when he learns that Tim is Amy's ex-boyfriend, that discomfort due to his and Amy's own sexual tension. As such, Travis decides to attend the conference himself, finagling an invitation from Graham, who didn't much like Tim. Amy has a difficult enough time trying to maneuver her and Tim's personal history with this professional situation, it made all the more difficult in encountering another speaker, tech giant Mitchell McHale - bigger-than-life, at least in his and his entourage's own estimation, that entourage including his wife Alexis McHale and the tech company COO Billy Poole - who will be presenting on his new software SLOOTH, which is meant not to assist in but rather solve crimes, replacing humans in this work, humans such as police detectives. Possible investors, like venture capitalist Vicky Lin, are also at the conference to check out McHale's presentation. The course of the conference changes when one within this collective is found dead having fallen off the roof of the venue where the conference is taking place. While it was meant to look like suicide, the authorities have to investigate the likely possibility of murder. It is Amy's turn to be quietly agitated when the SPD detective leading the case is Lt. Rachel Knox, who not only attended the police academy with Travis, but the two who once dated. In believing it indeed murder, Travis and Amy can't help but investigate - all the others in the collective prime suspects for one reason or another - they needing to tread lightly with Rachel in not stepping on her toes in it being her investigation in her jurisdiction. They may find that it is another active murder case within the SPD, that case led by a less than enthusiastic Detective Denny Roma, that provides another key piece to the puzzle.—Huggo

Travis takes a few days off, having heard Amy is a key speaker at the Teachable Talks (T2) conference by her dashing ex, T2-founder Tim Bishop, and offers to drive her father Graham there, an ideal introduction without actual invitation as both dislike Tim around Amy. T2-sponsor and cocky speaker, tech giant Mitchell McHale chases Amy from scene to practice rather then her silly speech his crucial introduction of his firm's software SLOOTH, which is meant not to assist in but rather solve crimes, already ordered by Seattle PD. Doubting if Mitch's fatal fall from the roof were an accident or suicide -although the faulty software proves a bankruptcy risk, as feared by investment-refusing venture capitalist Vicky Lin- Travis helps Amy investigate, as she remembers having seen now widowed Alexis McHale and the tech company COO Billy Poole kiss, who now admit an affair. Travis hopes to discredit Tim and uses both charm and skill to overcome former police academy buddy SPD lieutenant Rachel Knox's initial resentment to any mingling in her exclusive jurisdiction, instructing detective Denny Roma to help them investigate the next murder, in a villa, which leads the sleuths to a whole other story they must link.—KGF Vissers