Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2021
128 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
From the multi-award-winning master of crime, Denise Mina delivers a radical new take on one of the darkest episodes in Scottish history—the bloody assassination of David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, in the queen's chambers in Holyrood Palace.
On the evening of March 9th, 1566, David Rizzio, the private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots, was brutally murdered. Dragged from the chamber of the heavily pregnant Mary, Rizzio was stabbed fifty-six times by a party of assassins. This breathtakingly tense novella dramatizes the events that led up to that night, telling the infamous story as it has never been told before.
A dark tale of sex, secrets and lies, Rizzio looks at a shocking historical murder through a modern lens—and explores the lengths that men and women will go to in their search for love and power.
Rizzio is nothing less than a provocative and thrilling new literary masterpiece.
"Bestseller Mina vividly recreates a gruesome episode from the Tudor era in this searing novella set mostly over the course of a single day, Mar. 9, 1566...This superior historical thriller reads like a real-life episode of Game of Thrones." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This stand-alone thriller showcases Mina at her best, capturing the nuanced psychological suspense and ethical shadows of her Alex Morrow series as well as the electric dialogue and tangible grit of her Paddy Meehan novels." - Booklist (starred review)
"Mina has always been a close observer of brutality. This one feels painfully real." - New York Times
"Takes readers on a suspenseful tour into the past, through psyches and situations far grimmer than even those sooty Glasgow streets." - Washington Post
This information about Rizzio was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Denise Mina is the author of sixteen novels, including the Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club pick Conviction and its sequel Confidence, as well as The Less Dead, The Long Drop—winner of the 2017 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year—and the Garnethill trilogy, the first installment of which won the John Creasey Memorial Award for best first crime novel, among others. Mina has twice received the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. She lives in Glasgow.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
