The Ghostwriter

Published in 2025, The Ghostwriter is a mystery thriller novel by American author Julie Clark. Clark is a bestselling author of thriller and suspense novels, which include The Last Flight (2020) and The Lies I Tell (2022). Inspired by urban legends from Clark’s childhood, The Ghostwriter marks her first foray into the murder mystery subgenre.

The novel follows Olivia Dumont, a memoir ghostwriter who has spent her adult life trying to distance herself from her father, legendary horror novelist Vincent Taylor. When Vincent asks her to write his memoir, Olivia is forced by circumstance to reconnect with him. She soon discovers that the memoir is focused on the murders of Vincent’s two siblings in 1975, a cold case in which Vincent was considered the prime suspect. Olivia must navigate both her estranged relationship with her father and the conflicting pieces of evidence to solve a 50-year-old mystery. Clark uses this story to investigate The Personal Cost of Secrets, The Cycle of Inherited Trauma, and The Tension Between Truth and Memory.

This guide is based on the Kindle edition of the novel, published by Sourcebooks Landmark in 2025.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of gender discrimination, sexual violence, rape, mental illness, death, child sexual abuse, pregnancy termination, child death, animal death, substance use, addiction, graphic violence, cursing, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

Olivia Taylor hears a rumor that her father, rising horror novelist Vincent Taylor, murdered his siblings, Danny and Poppy, in June 1975. Although she doesn’t believe the rumor is true, Olivia becomes increasingly estranged from Vincent due to his substance addiction and the emotionally abusive behavior this causes. As an adult, Olivia keeps the surname of her first husband, Dumont, to obscure her relation to Vincent. She works as a ghostwriter, specializing in the memoirs of public figures committed to uplifting women’s rights.

In 2024, Olivia is living in debt after her attempt to call another ghostwriter out for misogyny backfires on her. Vincent reaches out to hire her as the ghostwriter for his next book. The book isn’t a novel, but a memoir on the deaths of Vincent’s siblings. Vincent needs Olivia’s help because he has Lewy body dementia, an illness that affects his ability to write. Vincent stresses the need for discretion and forbids Olivia from interviewing secondary subjects to verify his account of the murders. He provides Olivia with a handwritten manuscript, which proves to be incoherent.

Under a tight deadline, Olivia rushes into the work, uncovering evidence that suggests that Vincent is not as innocent as he claims to be. The manuscript includes expressions that implicate Vincent in Danny’s murder. Olivia asks Vincent to recall his siblings and learns that Danny and Vincent had an antagonistic relationship. One evening, Vincent hallucinates that Olivia is her mother, Lydia, who was his girlfriend at the time of the murders. Vincent suggests that the murder weapon, a knife, is hidden in Poppy’s secret hiding place. A parallel storyline depicts Vincent becoming increasingly suspicious that Lydia is cheating on him with Danny in the months leading up to the murders.

Olivia is frustrated when Vincent’s book team expresses doubt in her ability to complete the project. It becomes clear that a member of the book team is leaking her involvement in the book to John Calder, the writer Olivia tried to call out. Calder undermines Olivia, writing emails to Vincent to get her kicked off the project. While going through the storage boxes in Vincent’s house, Olivia finds Poppy’s secret diary in a film reel cannister. This initiates a second parallel storyline, in which Poppy discovers that Lydia has gotten an abortion. Poppy reckons with the burden of this knowledge, especially when she realizes that Vincent knows nothing about Lydia’s pregnancy.

Vincent pushes the narrative that Danny murdered Poppy though he does not have concrete evidence to support this claim. Thanks to Poppy’s diary, Olivia can draw a timeline of relevant events leading to the murders. She also starts searching for the Super 8 film reels Poppy kept, which may offer her clues. Olivia breaks into Vincent’s childhood home, which Vincent still owns, and finds the film reels under the floorboards of Poppy’s bedroom. She digitizes the film reels and learns that some of Vincent’s claims have been outright lies.

Olivia’s private life falls into disarray when her partner, Tom, learns that Olivia had lied to him about her father being dead. Olivia decides that she can no longer proceed without interviewing secondary sources. She visits Poppy and Danny’s childhood best friends, who both support the theory that Vincent was the killer. Poppy’s best friend, Margot, raises the possibility that it wasn’t Danny who got Lydia pregnant, but her track coach, Mr. Stewart. This tracks with a film reel that seems to show Vincent burying Mr. Stewart’s cat after killing it, among other incidents that demonstrate his vendetta against the teacher.

A meeting with the district attorney who helped relitigate the Taylor case convinces Olivia that none of the evidence uncovered thus far actually establishes Vincent as the murderer of his siblings. Olivia’s childhood friend, Jack, appeals to her to consider Vincent’s motivations for telling his story now. This prompts Olivia to confront Vincent with the information she knows. Vincent reveals that he learned about Lydia’s pregnancy from Danny, who mocked him over his girlfriend’s infidelity, thus stoking tensions between them. Olivia interviews Mr. Stewart but only learns that he accompanied Lydia to her abortion.

Olivia’s involvement in the book is leaked to the public, prompting Vincent and Olivia to work together and identify the leak in the book team. Olivia accidentally reveals to her agent, Nicole, that Vincent is her father. Nicole believes this will help the book’s marketing. Olivia finds a line in Vincent’s manuscript that places him at the scene of the crime when the murders occurred. Vincent admits that the alibi he gave the police was false. Olivia shows Vincent a clip that Poppy took of a bonfire party Vincent could not attend at Mr. Stewart’s house. Vincent gets upset with the clip, causing him to smash a window and end up in the hospital. The incident prompts Olivia to visit Lydia, who abandoned her and Vincent when Olivia was still young.

Lydia, who has been living under Vincent’s financial support ever since she left their family, reveals that the party clip shows Danny flirting with Lydia. Danny raped Lydia on the night of the bonfire party, causing her to become pregnant. Olivia suggests that Danny killed Poppy to prevent her from exposing his crime. Lydia gives Olivia Poppy’s Super 8 camera, which she stole for safekeeping on the week of the murders, to explain Danny’s real motivation for killing her. The film on the camera reveals that Mr. Stewart sexually abused Danny among many other students. Danny tried to destroy Poppy’s camera when he realized that she captured his encounter with Mr. Stewart on film.

Olivia realizes that keeping secrets caused Vincent and Lydia to live lonely lives. She resolves to stop keeping any more secrets from Tom. She shows the newly discovered film reel to Vincent, who becomes convinced that it wasn’t Danny who killed Poppy, but Mr. Stewart. Vincent instructs Olivia to expose Mr. Stewart in his memoir and send the draft to his book team. After she sends the draft, Vincent tells her what really happened.

Mr. Stewart surprised Poppy at the house, overpowered her, and stabbed her with the kitchen knife. He left just before Danny arrived. Danny was shocked by the discovery of Poppy’s body. When Vincent arrived, he assumed that Danny was the one who killed Poppy. The two brothers broke out into a fight that ended with Danny knocking out Vincent. Lydia then reached the house, and, having assumed that Danny killed Vincent, took the knife and stabbed Danny in self-defense.

Vincent and Olivia work together to establish Mr. Stewart as the sole killer of the Taylor siblings in the memoir. They agree to protect Lydia, who is the only person who knows what happened to the murder weapon. One year later, Vincent dies of his illness. Mr. Stewart is incarcerated after survivors of his abuse come forward to testify against him. Olivia has Vincent’s childhood home torn down. She and Tom reconcile over Olivia’s resolve to tell the truth about her childhood. The novel ends on a happy memory of Vincent’s, capturing his family’s joy.