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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 ...
'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 (starred)
'darkly compelling, riveting' — Sam Baker
'The cream of the crop, an author who pushes the crime novel in new and exciting directions' — Ian Rankin
'May be Britain's finest living crime novelist' ? Daily Telegraph
'Denise Mina brilliantly manages to be funny, heart-wrenching, gut-punching and addictive all at once' —Nicci French
One of the most talented, most daring, most humane writers of the past twenty years, an artist whose thrillers d'ouble as bracing moral inquiries' —A. J. Finn
'a writer of huge skill and inventiveness who blends tense, well-crafted crime fiction with social conscience and historical weight' —The Bookseller
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
December 1, 2021 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781004061488
- File size: 66580 KB
- Duration: 02:18:42
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Scottish crime novelist Denise Mina has written a grimly authentic novella about the 1566 assassination of David Rizzio, private secretary and confidant to Mary, Queen of Scots. Narrator Katie Leung delivers the grisly murder like a modern-day journalist. Her voice is tense but controlled, engaged but not impassioned. Her natural Scottish accent reminds us that the scene is in Edinburgh, yet her clear enunciation is comprehensible to American listeners. Her other voices seem well suited to the vicious characters who plot rebellion and make a mockery of Mary's sovereignty. Leung enhances a convincing portrayal of an era replete with political intrigue, brutality, and religious turmoil. This audiobook is a good mixture of historical fact and fast-paced fiction. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine -
Starred review from July 12, 2021
Bestseller Mina (The Less Dead) 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. Mary, Queen of Scots, is the target of a conspiracy. Her ambitious husband, Henry, Lord Darnley, joins a plot to have David Rizzio, Mary’s personal secretary and close friend, murdered in front of the heavily pregnant queen in the hope the shock will cause her to miscarry, and thus strengthen Darnley’s claim to the throne. The first chapter’s title, “David Rizzio Plays Tennis with His Assassins,” heightens the tension as readers come to dread Rizzio’s inevitable fate. Mina interjects well-wrought characterizations into the events that follow the tennis game, which culminate in the invasion of Mary’s chambers by 80 armed soldiers, who drag off the helpless Rizzio and stab him 56 times. The author’s other judicious choice, to employ some anachronistic phrasing (Mary refers to Darnley as “a waste of space”), creates a sense of immediacy. This superior historical thriller reads like a real-life episode of Game of Thrones. Agent: Fiona Brownlee, Brownlee Donald Assoc. (U.K.).
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