The sequel to 2021's critically acclaimed Black Drop and 2022's bestselling Blue Water, in which reluctant sleuth Laurence Jago becomes enmeshed in a deadly election in his native Cornwall

** A TELEGRAPH BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ** 'Nattrass's best yet' - S.G. MACLEAN 'Wonderfully evocative' - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Authentic and relentlessly pageturning' - SUNDAY EXPRESS 1796. A rigged election. A town at war. A murderer at large... Disgraced 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 home town 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 patron, his old master the Duke of Leeds. But it is no easy matter, thanks to the machinations of the rival political factions, not to mention the riotous performances of Toby the Sapient Hog. 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, and Blue Water, a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. Perfect for readers of Andrew Taylor, Laura Shepherd-Robinson and S.J. Parris. 'An enjoyable read' - THE TIMES 'Wonderfully witty' - ROBERT J. LLOYD

"Gloriously entertaining... Authentic and relentlessly pageturning, Scarlet Town provides fresh proof of its author's talent for setting a gripping murder mystery against a detailed backdrop of 18th-century society, and it further enhances her reputation as a first-class writer" - Sunday Express

"Wonderfully evocative" - Telegraph

"Leonora Nattrass transports the reader to 18th-century Cornwall and corrupt electioneering in a divided town... Writing with panache, Nattrass reminds us that rotten boroughs are hardly a new phenomenon." - Financial Times

"As enjoyable a read as her earlier novels" - Sunday Times

"Nattrass is so at home with the history, customs and language of her chosen period that she bring a relaxed credibility to this tale of public and private malfeasance" - Literary Review