The first book in the acclaimed William Dougal crime series, from Richard & Judy bestselling author and CWA Dagger winner, Andrew Taylor.

The first book in the brilliant William Dougal crime series, from the bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London.

William Dougal, a post-graduate expert in the medieval script of Caroline Minuscule, stumbles on the garroted corpse of his tutor - and finds himself embroiled in a hunt for a cache of diamonds, a deadly fairy story in which no one obeys the rules, least of all Dougal's girlfriend Amanda. As the body count rises, the couple pursue both the diamonds and their doom from London, to an East Anglian cathedral close, from Cambridge to a wintry Suffolk estuary.

"Lively and entertaining" - Times Literary Supplement

"An amusing romp" - Sunday Telegraph

"This one's a maverick . . . [with] a professional touch unusual in a first novel" - Irish Times

"A rather unusual book . . . with sharply etched characters and a rather shocking amorality" - The New York Times Book Review