The Shadow of the Serpent: An Inspector McLevy Mystery - Couverture souple

The first in the McLevy series, this is wonderfully evocative detective fiction, based in dark, violent, Victorian Edinburgh. It's 1880 and the city is gripped by election fever. But while the rich and educated argue about politics, in the dank wynds of the city it's a struggle just to stay alive, especially when a murderous madman seems to have resurfaced after thirty years. A prostitute is brutally slain and Inspector McLevy makes it his mission to find the killer, having failed the first time round. But his questioning leads him somewhere far more dangerous than the labyrinth of Leith. It leads him into a world of politics, perversion, deception and mystery and into the shadow of the serpent.

David Ashton s writing is excellent, his characters thoroughly convincing, and his narrative grabs you - I was going to say, by the throat - and doesn t let you go. --The Sherlock Holmes Society of London

McLevy is a sort of Victorian Morse with a heart, prowling the mean wynds and tenements of the endless fascinating city. David Ashton impeccably evokes Edinburgh so vividly that you can feel the cold in your bones and the menace of the Old Town s steep cobbles and dark corners. --The Financial Times

'Dripping with melodrama and derring-do' --The Herald