Hew Cullan Mystery

Introducing sixteenth-century Scottish lawyer and amateur sleuth Hew Cullan in "a gripping mystery that holds the reader to the very last page". 1579, St Andrews. A thirteen-year-old boy meets his death on the streets of the university city of St Andrews, and suspicion falls upon one of the regents at the university, Nicholas Colp. Hew Cullan, a young lawyer recently returned home from Paris, uncovers a complex tale of passion and duplicity, of sexual desire in conflict with the repressive atmosphere of the Protestant Kirk and the austerity of the academic cloister.

In the sixteenth century, a girl is found dead on the beach at St Andrews, Scotland, and a young scholar of the law must play sleuth. 1581: Young St Andrews academic Hew Cullan is unhappy with his life and disillusioned with the law. After his father's death he is invited by the advocate Richard Cunningham to complete his legal education in Edinburgh as Richard's pupil at the bar. Among his father's things, Hew finds a manuscript entitled "In Defence of the Law," directed to the Edinburgh printer Christian Hall. At first, he resists its influence, but when a young girl is found dead on the beach at St Andrews, he is left unsettled and confused. He resolves to take the book to press and agrees to Richard's offer. Embarking on his new life in the capital, he falls in love. His relationships are fraught with lies and secrets and lead to brutal murder on the borough muir. Hew suspects a link with the dead girl on the beach. As he begins his desperate search to find the killer, he finds that the truth lies closer to home, in this historical mystery by a Dagger Award finalist.

St Andrews, 1583. The young king, James VI, is confined at Falkland Palace, plotting his escape. Dissension rages between Kirk and Crown, the king and his "lord enterprisers," and between the separate factions of the church. In St Andrews Castle, a bishop in decline plays out his darkest fantasies while lawyer Hew Cullan and his friend, Giles, investigate the true source of his sickness, uncovering corruption at its heart. The death of a young soldier implicates Hew's sister and Giles's wife, Meg, and leads Hew to an astonishing discovery and towards his blackest hour, his fortunes inextricable from those of James himself. Real historical figures woven into this fantastical tale are James VI, the bastard son of James V, spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, and Alison Pearson who was executed for witchcraft in 1588.

A shipwreck brings excitement-and tragedy-to a sixteenth-century town, and a reluctant lawyer is drawn into the mystery behind it . . . In the swell of a storm, a ship is wrecked in Scotland's St Andrews harbor. A young Flemish sailor, the last man aboard, collapses and dies at the inn. The cargo of the ship appears a welcome windfall-but soon brings devastation to the town as petty squabbling turns to rage and tragedy. Now Hew Cullen must trace the ship to its source in Ghent, where he uncovers a strange secret. Unwilling to allow the law to take its course, he will return once more to the bitter role of advocate, to find his deepest principles are tested to the core, in this suspenseful mystery by a Dagger Award finalist.

A suspenseful novel of sixteenth-century Scotland from a Dagger Award finalist: "A richly imagined tale, very well researched." -Historical Novel Society 1587: Three years after his enforced departure to London, lawyer Hew Cullen is reconciled with King James VI and recalled to Scotland. He elopes to St Andrews with a young Englishwoman. But the death of Mary, Queen of Scots has unleashed a wave of anti-English sentiment among the Scottish people, and fear and confusion in the king himself. James will grant his blessing to their controversial marriage on the condition that Hew discovers what lies behind a painting cunningly contrived to prick the young king's conscience-an anamorphic death's-head with his mother's face. Meanwhile in St Andrews, the death of a painter is troubling to Giles Locke, and the English Frances, struggling to adapt to a foreign town and culture, helps Hew find the link among the artists and intriguers of opposing courts, a quest for love-and life-requiring all his skills…

Stories starring a sleuthing Scottish lawyer: "McKay's command of plot, place and character makes these 16th century St Andrews-set mysteries a delight." -The Scotsman A grisly murder. A vanishing corpse. A secret romance. A ghostly tale. An innocent accused. Set in the year of the Armada, 1588: A Calendar of Crime brings together five short stories featuring Hew Cullan. From the gruesome murder of a candlemaker to Spanish ghosts on Hallowmas, Shirley McKay delivers five gripping tales of mystery that will keep you reading long into the night. "A fascinating evocation of the everyday life of ordinary Scots in the 1500s as well as series of first-rate stories. Her use of language is a delight, the sinewy and expressive Scots words aiding the creation of Cullen's very realistic world. McKay is to be congratulated for the continued quality and inventiveness of her tales." -The National