May, 1937. Josephine Tey is in London to oversee a BBC radio production of her play, Queen of Scots. Meanwhile, the country is preparing to crown a new king.





At the height of the Coronation celebrations, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose is called in to investigate the murder of one of the BBC's best-known broadcasters. A second victim - his mistress, and the play's leading actress - suggests that the motive lies close to home, but Josephine suspects that the killings are linked to a decade-old scandal.





With Archie's hands tied by politics, and his attention taken by another, seemingly unrelated death, it is left to Josephine to get to the truth - and to confront at first-hand the deadly consequences of love, deceit and betrayal.



Nicola Upson was born in Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. Her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels whose main character is Josephine Tey - one of the leading authors of Britain's Golden Age of crime writing. She lives with her partner in Cambridge and spends much of her time in Cornwall.