Shona Sandison might be about to get her biggest scoop yet – if she can make it to the end of the investigation alive.
In a darkening, post-COVID world, fearless investigative reporter Shona Sandison is seeking meaning – and her next big story. A secret contact inside the government has promised her something huge, but she has no idea of the danger she is in. Meanwhile, her old friend Hector Stricken has taken on a position in communications for a new state agency, where he stumbles across a sinister, top-secret project codenamed ‘Grendel’. And on the Scottish coast, an ageing spy chief, living in seclusion, grieves his murdered son – and contemplates revenge.
Connecting them all is an insidious conspiracy within the UK’s most powerful institutions, a rot so deep that the only way to cure it may be to cut it out – or burn the whole thing down.
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'Miller’s outstanding third case for reporter Shona Sandison effortlessly braids together three interconnected story lines... Miller doesn’t rush things, allowing the disparate strands of his sophisticated narrative to come together slowly, and he enriches the proceedings with striking prose and lovable characters'
" - Publishers Weekly
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'full of spies, conspiracies, government secrets, the newspaper industry and, inevitably, murder. Plenty, then, for our journalist heroine to get her teeth into. Miller, formerly arts correspondent of this parish, has proven himself a very able crime writer in recent years'
" - The Herald
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'Miller’s greatest gift is to get you to care about his characters long before you’ve figured out what they’re looking for'
" - Kirkus Reviews
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'Deeply scary and all too believable'
" - BookPage (US)
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'A top secret, sinister government project, an elderly spy chief out to avenge his murdered son and a treacherous plot within the UK’s most powerful institutions come together in this explosive read'
" - Sunday Post
