Mistress of the Just Land

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What to expect

The first book in a new series by the creator of Inspector McLevy.

New Year's Day - and through the misty streets of Victorian Edinburgh an elegant, female figure walks the cobblestones - with a certain vengeful purpose.

Jean Brash, the Mistress of the Just Land, brings her cool intelligence to solving a murder, a murder that took place in her own bawdy-house (the best in Edinburgh and her pride and joy).

A prominent judge, strangled and left dangling, could bring her whole life to ruin and she didn't haul herself off the streets, up through low dirty houses of pleasure and violent vicious men - to let that come to pass. The search for the killers will take Jean back into her own dark past as she uncovers a web of political and sexual corruption in the high reaches of the Edinburgh establishment.

A young boy's death long ago is demanding justice but, as the body count increases, she has little time before a certain Inspector James McLevy, comes sniffing round like a wolf on the prowl.

Jean may be on the side of natural justice but is she on the side of the law? Or will the law bring her down?

(P) 2016 John Murray Press

Critics Review

Here is Jean Brash centre stage in all her splendour - clever, cheeky, generous, alluring, hard-headed, yet prone to the occasional burst of crazy romanticism, an old friend who is full of surprises. I find her as irresistible as McLevy does: she's my favourite character and David Ashton's writing is as delicious, elegant and compelling as she is.
Siobhan Redmond (Jean Brash in BBC Radio 4’s McLevy series)
Ashton is an old hand at milking the Old Town, New Town and Leith for their maximum atmosphere, suspense and air of criminality. That, combined with the intriguing premise of a crime-solving brotel-keeper, makes Mistress of the Just Land a most diverting page turner
Herald
PRAISE FOR THE INSPECTOR McLEVY SERIES
Mclevy is a sort of Victorian Morse with a heart, prowling the mean wynds and tenements of the endlessly fascinating city. David Ashton impeccably evokes Edinburgh so vividly that you feel the cold in your bones and the menace of the Old Town's steep cobbles and dark corners
Financial Times
An intriguing Victorian story... elegant and convincing
The Times
McLevy is one of the greatest psychological creations and Ashton the direct heir to Robert Louis Stevenson
Brian Cox, CBE - Award-winning actor
David Ashton's writing is excellent, his characters thoroughly convincing and his narrative grabs you
The Sherlock Holmes Society
Ashton's McLevy is a man obsessed with meting out justice and with demons of his own
Scotsman
A real page-turner
Sunday Post

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