The Cupid Killer and Other Murderers

The new Pignon Scorbion mystery is the first title from WhoopInk, the new publishing imprint launched by EGOT-winning actor and author Whoopi Goldberg!

The year is 1910. Summer is fading, but in the quaint English market town of Haxford, something darker is taking root. When dead young women begin appearing on the barbershop doorstep—each with arrows piercing their flesh, lipstick hearts painted on their foreheads, and their bodies shrouded in red rose petals—Chief Police Inspector Pignon Scorbion is drawn into one of the most macabre cases of his career. And he’ll need every ounce of brilliance from his barbershop detectives to unravel the truth behind the so-called Cupid Killer.

But the murders don’t end there.

A dazzling young magician appears to be in three places at once—performing onstage, sitting in the audience, and in a tavern where a patron is murdered. An infamous author is poisoned in an unexplainable manner moments after speaking about his “afterlife” experiences. And a brutal attack on the visiting cousin of the barbershop’s bootblack shakes everyone.

As Scorbion and his eccentric band of sleuths chase answers riddled with trickery, illusion, and small-town secrets, a high-ranking Scotland Yard official arrives to scrutinize Scorbion’s unorthodox methods. Meanwhile, newspaper baron Faustin Hardcastle intensifies his smear campaign against Scorbion, and Scorbion’s relationship with the brilliant and spirited bookseller Thelma Smith deepens—just as Thelma throws herself into the rising suffragette movement.

Mystery, romance, political upheaval, and danger collide in this witty and beguiling addition to the Pignon Scorbion series—where every puzzle hides another, and no heart, no matter how guarded, is safe from the arrow’s strike.