Awards

• Long-listed for Historical Dagger 2024 (UK)
• Short-listed for CWA Historical Dagger 2024 (UK)

Overview

** A TELEGRAPH BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR **** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER AWARD **'Nattrass's best yet' - S.G. MACLEAN'Wonderfully evocative' - DAILY TELEGRAPH'Authentic and relentlessly pageturning' - SUNDAY EXPRESSA rigged election. A feuding Cornish town. A suspicious death. And a perspicacious pig.May 1796, and former Foreign Office clerk Laurence Jago and his larger-than-life employer, the journalist William Philpott, have escaped America - and Philpott's near imprisonment for libel - by the skin of their teeth. They return to Laurence's hometown of Helston, Cornwall, in the hope of rest and recuperation, but instead find themselves in the middle of a tumultuous election that has the inhabitants of the town at one another's throats.Only two men may vote in this rotten borough, and when one of them dies in suspicious circumstances, Laurence is ordered to investigate on behalf of the town's political patron, his old master the Duke of Leeds. Then the second elector is poisoned and suspicion turns on the town doctor, the gentle Pythagoras Jago, Laurence's own cousin. Suddenly Laurence finds himself ensnared in generations of bad blood and petty rivalries, with his cousin's fate in his hands...The new page-turning historical mystery from the author of Black Drop, a 2021 Times Book of the Year. Perfect for readers of Andrew Taylor and Laura Shepherd-Robinson.

Full Product Details

9781800816992

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Reviews

This gets my vote! Jane Austen meets Agatha Christie in this cleverly plotted tale of courtship, poison, and electoral shenanigans. The characters and their dialogue, as ever with Leonora Nattrass, are wonderfully witty -- Robert J. Lloyd, author of THE BLOODLESS BOY A brilliant addition to the Laurence Jago series, an election in an 18th Century Cornish town where only two people can vote and one of them dies... I loved it -- J.B. Mylet, author of THE HOMES I so enjoyed the latest adventures of Laurence Jago in this captivating story of political intrigue, mystery and murder. Fast paced and full of unexpected twists and turns, I was thoroughly swept along with our seemingly hapless hero amidst the turmoil of election fever in Helston town. Nattrass expertly guides her readers through the shockingly undemocratic complexities of the rotten borough elections, whilst at the same time spinning a wonderful and compelling murder mystery -- Louise Fein, author of PEOPLE LIKE US I can't get enough of Nattrass's Laurence Jago series, and Scarlet Town is another fantastic instalment! With a setting and characters that leap off the page, Scarlet Town is an immersive and delightful read that I absolutely whizzed through. A brilliantly entertaining historical crime caper - I loved it -- Philippa East, author of LITTLE WHITE LIES

Author Information

Leonora Nattrass studied eighteenth-century literature and politics, and spent ten years lecturing in English and publishing works on William Cobbett. She lives in Cornwall, in a seventeenth-century house with seventeenth-century draughts, and spins the fleeces of her Ryeland sheep into yarn. Her first novel, Black Drop, was published in 2021, and was a Times Book of the Year. Her second, Blue Water, was published in 2022 and was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month and shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award. Her fourth novel, standalone historical mystery The Bells of Westminster, will be published by Viper in 2024. Find her on X @LeonoraNattrass.

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