Oliver is assigned the part of Banquo and is surprised to see James, rather than Richard, appear as Macbeth on Halloween night. Each student is mailed an envelope containing their casting assignment and the scenes to prepare, as well as instructions not to share the information with any of their peers. However, the situation changes at the annual Halloween performance, a select few scenes from Macbeth fourth year students traditionally perform each year. When they receive the cast, Alexander's predictions are revealed to be correct. The night before auditions for Julius Caesar, one of the students-Alexander-suggests that the auditions are pointless as all seven have been consistently typecast - the hero (James), the villain (Alexander), the tyrant (Richard), the temptress (Meredith), the ingénue (Wren), and the unlucky two consigned to bit parts (Oliver and Filippa).

As underperforming students are purged every year, the seven of them are the only fourth-year acting students remaining. In 1997, Oliver is in his fourth and final year at the prestigious Dellecher Classical Conservatory, where he resides with his six classmates in a small dormitory called the Castle. Oliver accepts but requests that Colborne not act upon what Oliver will tell him. Suspicious of the official story, Colborne announces his retirement from the police force and asks Oliver to finally tell him the truth. The evening before he is due to be released on parole after serving ten years for an unspecified crime, Oliver Marks is approached by the lead investigator on his case, Detective Colborne. A series adaptation of the novel is in development.

The novel concerns a murder mystery surrounding Oliver Marks, a former actor at the fictional Dellecher Shakespeare conservatory and primarily takes place during his fourth and final year at the conservatory. Rio, first published in 2017 by Flatiron Books. If We Were Villains is the debut novel of American author M.

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio