-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Novella
by Denise Mina
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 bestselling author of the Garnethill trilogy, the Paddy Meehan series and the Alex Morrow series, as well as historical novels Rizzio, Three Fires and The Second Murderer, a Philip Marlowe novel for the Chandler estate. She has won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice, the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year twice, the Gordon Burn Prize and was inducted into the Crime Writers' Association Hall of Fame in 2014. Denise also writes graphic novels and plays, and presents television and radio programmes. She studied law and forensic examination at Glasgow University and taught criminology and criminal law part-time at Strathclyde University. Denise lives and works in Glasgow. The Good Liar is her twentieth novel.
If you liked Rizzio, try these:
by Emma Copley Eisenberg
Published 2021
A stunningly written investigation of the murder of two young women--showing how a violent crime casts a shadow over an entire community.
The Confessions of Frannie Langton
by Sara Collins
Published 2020
A servant and former slave is accused of murdering her employer and his wife in this astonishing historical thriller that moves from a Jamaican sugar plantation to the fetid streets of Georgian London.
by Hannah Kent
Published 2014
A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.
The only completely consistent people are the dead
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
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.
