A young Mary Queen of Scots witnesses the brutal murder of her private secretary David Rizzio during the bloody coup of Holyrood Palace in March of 1566.

The Murder Of David Rizzio – a painting by Friedrich Paul Thumann

Ever since reading the brilliant crime trilogy ‘Garnethill‘ several years ago, I have been an ardent fan of Denise Mina.

This time out, she has penned a novella that brings Scottish history vividly to life like no history text could ever do.

Mary Queen of Scots became a real person, and the writing of this book portrayed her in an authentic way. Set a few years after the Reformation, it depicts the brutal murder of David Rizzio and the violent coup of  Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland. At this time Mary Queen of Scots witnessed the brutal and bloody murder of David Rizzio when she was heavily pregnant and only twenty-three years old.

This is a vivid depiction of one of the major events in Scottish history. Recommended!This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Pegasus Books/Simon & Schuster via Edelweiss.

Publication date: September 7, 2021     Publisher: Pegasus Books

ISBN: 9781643138459  –  ASIN: ‎‎ ‎ ‎ B08X4YH478  –  128 pages

After a peripatetic childhood in Glasgow, Paris, London, Invergordon, Bergen and Perth, Denise Mina left school early. Working in a number of dead end jobs, all of them badly, before studying at night school to get into Glasgow University Law School.
Denise went on to study for a PhD at Strathclyde, misusing her student grant to write her first novel. This was Garnethill, published in 1998, which won the Crime Writers Association John Creasy Dagger for Best First Crime Novel.
She has now published 12 novels and also writes short stories, plays and graphic novels.
In 2014 she was inducted into the Crime Writers’ Association Hall of Fame.
Denise presents TV and radio programmes as well as regularly appearing in the media, and has made a film about her own family.
She regularly appears at literary festivals in the UK and abroad, leads masterclasses on writing and was a judge for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction 2014. Denise Mina has been awarded the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year and the Gordon Burn Prize for “The Long Drop“.

Follow Denise Mina on Twitter @DameDeniseMina