Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month for February 2022
Longlisted for theCWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2022
This breathtakingly tense work is a tale of sex,seduction,secrets and lies,one that looks at history through a modern lens and explores the lengths that men - and women - will go to in the search for love and power.
It's Saturday evening,9 March 1566,and Mary,Queen of Scots,is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party. Outside,Edinburgh is bustling. It's full of the Great and the Good and the Idiot Sons of the Rich,here for a Parliament that will take Scotland by the shoulders and turn it from England to face Europe.
Mary doesn't know that her Palace is surrounded - that,right now,an army of men is creeping upstairs to her chamber. They're coming to murder David Rizzio,her friend and secretary,the handsome Italian man who is smiling across the table at her. Mary's husband wants it done in front of her and he wants her to watch it done...
Publisher: Birlinn GeneralISBN: 9781846976094Weight: 128 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 8 mmEdition: New in Paperback
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Denise Mina is a name to be taken very seriously when it comes to crime fiction... Mary is a heroine tailor-made for (her) expert literary investigation'- New York Times'May be Britain's finest living crime novelist'- Daily Telegraph
'Contains more suspense and action than many a doorstopper of a historical thriller... Written in a style allowing access to multiple characters'thoughts,rich with cinema-sharp imagery,Rizzio is a tour de force work of art'- The Wall Street Journal
'A writer of huge skill and inventiveness who blends tense,well-crafted crime fiction with social conscience and historical weight'- The Bookseller
'Bestseller Mina vividly recreates a gruesome episode from the Tudor era in this searing novella set mostly over the course of a single day,Mar. 9,1566. Mina interjects well-wrought characterizations; this superior historical thriller reads like a real-life episode of Game of Thrones'- Publishers Weekly
'This is an edgy,provocative and thrilling classic in the making'- Scottish Books International
'It's apt that Mina should embrace the short form novella,encapsulating the darkness and drama yet somehow managing to keep it light and at times funny'- Janet Christie,The Scotsman Magazine
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