'Jean Brash is my favourite character and David Ashton's writing is as delicious,elegant and compelling as she is'Siobhan Redmond (Jean Brash in BBC Radio 4's McLevy series)Jean Brash,who first appeared in BBC Radio 4's Inspector McLevy mysteries,is a formidable woman in her prime.Once a child of the streets,she is now Mistress of the Just Land,the best bawdy-hoose in Edinburgh and her pride and joy. But a murder in her establishment could wreck everything.New Year's Day - and through the misty streets of Victorian Edinburgh an elegant,female figure walks the cobblestones - with a certain vengeful purpose. Jean Brash,the Mistress of the Just Land,brings her cool intelligence to solving a murder,a murder that took place in her own bawdy-hoose. A prominent judge,strangled and left dangling,could bring her whole life to ruin and she didn't haul herself off the streets,up through low dirty houses of pleasure and violent vicious men - to let that come to pass. The search for the killers will take Jean back into her own dark past as she uncovers a web of political and sexual corruption in the high reaches of the Edinburgh establishment.A young boy's death long ago is demanding justice but,as the body count increases,she has little time before a certain Inspector James McLevy comes sniffing round like a wolf on the prowl.Jean may be on the side of natural justice but is she on the side of the law Or will the law bring her down
Publisher: John Murray PressISBN: 9781473632271Number of pages: 336Weight: 240 gDimensions: 199 x 130 x 22 mm
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Here is Jean Brash centre stage in all her splendour - clever,cheeky,generous,alluring,hard-headed,yet prone to the occasional burst of crazy romanticism,an old friend who is full of surprises. I find her as irresistible as McLevy does: she's my favourite character and David Ashton's writing is as delicious,elegant and compelling as she is.Ashton is an old hand at milking the Old Town,New Town and Leith for their maximum atmosphere,suspense and air of criminality. That,combined with the intriguing premise of a crime-solving brotel-keeper,makes Mistress of the Just Land a most diverting page turner
PRAISE FOR THE INSPECTOR McLEVY SERIESMclevy is a sort of Victorian Morse with a heart,prowling the mean wynds and tenements of the endlessly fascinating city. David Ashton impeccably evokes Edinburgh so vividly that you feel the cold in your bones and the menace of the Old Town's steep cobbles and dark corners
An intriguing Victorian story... elegant and convincingMcLevy is one of the greatest psychological creations and Ashton the direct heir to Robert Louis StevensonDavid Ashton's writing is excellent,his characters thoroughly convincing and his narrative grabs youAshton's McLevy is a man obsessed with meting out justice and with demons of his ownA real page-turner
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