Set in the 17th century against the backdrop of political and religious conflict, the second of Watt's John MacKenzie series is as historically rich and gripping as the last. MacKenzie investigates the murder of a woman accused of witchcraft and he must act quickly when the same accusations are made against the woman's daughter. Superstition clashes with reason as Scotland moves towards the Enlightenment. The 1600s are expertly recreated with a strong sense of history and place.

An aged-up THE TOMBS OF ATUAN meets AVA REID in this uniquely dark and gothic religious fantasy duology following three spiritual enemies forced to team up to find a murderer whose evil is responsible for degrading the magic that protects their Vatican-inspired city and all its people.

In a holy walled city where sin and sanctity are revealed through touch, Csilla - a girl born without a soul - is worth little to the Church that raised her. But when a series of murders corrodes the faithful magic that keep the city safe, the Church elders see a use for her flaw: she can assassinate their prime suspect, a heretic with divine heritage, without risking the stain of sin.

The heretic, however, makes Csilla a counteroffer: clear his name by helping him catch the real killer, and he'll use his angelic gifts to grant her very own soul. Meanwhile, ruthless Ilan, desperate to earn back his position as Church Inquisitor, sees the case as his chance at redemption: he'll bring in the murderer - or, failing that, Csilla and the heretic - and regain his title.

Gosford Park meets Groundhog Day by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror - the most inventive story you'll read this year.

'Utterly original and unique. I couldn't get it out of my head for days afterwards' Sophie Hannah

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden - one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party - can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...

'a tour de force work of art' - The Wall Street Journal, Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the 2022 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award It's Saturday evening, 9 March 1566, and Mary, Queen of Scots, is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party, secure in her private chambers. She 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, Lord Darnley, wants it done in front of her and he wants her to watch it done ... Denise Mina brilliantly portrays the sexual dynamics and politics of power - between men and women, monarch and subjects, master and servants. The period is masterfully researched yet lightly drawn, the characterisation quick, subtle and utterly convincing. This breathtakingly tense work is a tale of sex, secrets and lies, one that explores the lengths that men - and women - will go to in the search for love and power.

Artist Francis Bacon gets tangled up in murder while visiting the English countryside in the final mystery of this Lambda Award-winning series. Francis Bacon awakes in a four-poster bed with a punishing hangover and a naked footman beside him. The setting and company mean he's in the country, and that spells disaster for an up-and-coming artist whose natural habitat is the nightclubs and back alleys of swinging Soho. But he's put aside his distaste for the pastoral life for the sake of his favorite cousin, Poppy, a spirited young debutante who's committed the biggest blunder a deb can make: She's fallen in love with Freddie Bosworth-and must be rescued at all costs. Bosworth is a cad, an accused blackmailer with a love for Mussolini and dark secrets too terrible to tell. Fortunately, Poppy comes to her senses, breaking the engagement, and Francis thinks their troubles are over. But when the cousins take a walk through the manor grounds the next day, they find a handsome young man in a pin-striped suit lying dead in the grass. Freddie's throat has been cut, and Francis's life is on the line. Along his globetrotting adventures-which have taken him everywhere from Tangier to Berlin-Francis has been mixed up with spies, killers, and the misfits of the cities' underworlds. Now Janice Law, the Edgar Award-nominated author of Afternoons in Paris, continues to imagine the early years of the fascinating Irish-born painter, a notorious bon vivant, in the thrilling last installment of her popular mystery series. Mornings in London is the 6th book in the Francis Bacon Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

During the glory days of the Roaring Twenties, budding artist Francis Bacon heads to Paris to paint, love, and spy. Francis Bacon was having a ball in Berlin-until his uncle Lastings disappeared, leaving Francis alone, broke, and wanted by the German police as well as the burgeoning Nazi party for a political murder he didn't commit. Luckily, for a young painter still learning his craft, there's no better place to find refuge than the cafes of Paris. In the City of Lights, Francis can perfect his French, complete his education, and-if he's lucky-escape with his life. Strolling along the boulevard one lovely evening, he hears gunshots and sees a Russian emigre cut down by an assassin. Francis dashes into the night and flees to the countryside, but it's too late-the brilliant young painter is in trouble again. And when Uncle Lastings reappears, Francis will find himself back in the thick of a deadly game of international espionage. Inspired by the decadent youth of real-life legendary painter Francis Bacon, Afternoons in Paris is the latest installment in one of the most unique espionage series to come along in years. Featuring escapades in Berlin, Paris, and London, this trilogy is steeped in the shadowy atmosphere of John Horne Burns's bestselling The Gallery, one of the first novels to showcase unflinching depictions of gay life during wartime. Afternoons in Paris is the 5th book in the Francis Bacon Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.