1588: A Calendar of Crime

1588: A Calendar of Crime
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857909118

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.

Fate & Fortune

Fate & Fortune
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Birlinn
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857900196

1581, Edinburgh. Running from his new responsibilities as head of the family in St Andrews, young lawyer Hew Cullan arrives in the vibrant capital of medieval Scotland. There he plans to publish his late father's book and quietly endure the completion of his legal training under an old family friend. Life in the whirl of Edinburgh is full of dangers and distractions for Hew. Beautiful women, fashionable living and the treacherous world of the law threaten to turn his head. But a brutal murder and hints of a long-hidden mystery draw him into a deadly game against an unrepentant foe. When the game is murder, can Hew Cullan play to win? Fate & Fortune is the second Hew Cullan mystery by Shirley McKay.

Lammas

Lammas
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 91
Release: 2016-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857909142

Lammas is the third instalment of 1588: A Calendar of Crime, a collection of short stories published in step with the sixteenth century calendar. Lammas day, a day of celebration for some. Elspet, a serving girl at the harbour inn has been told for years by the inn's owner, Walter Bone, that she is ugly and that no man will ever want her. Then, after years of being shut away from the world she unexpectedly catches the attention of a young labourer and realises she has been lied to all these years. She meets her lover in secret at the Lammas day fair, but her dalliances do not go unnoticed . . . Hew Cullan finds himself retained by a man with a mind for murder. Walter Bone makes clear his intent to kill Elspet's lover, and seeks Hew's help to ensure his will is upheld when he is inevitably hanged for the act. But his jealousy has unexpected consequences. When Elspet disappears without a trace several innocent fair-goers and patrons are dragged into a web of suspicion, rumour and accusation. It falls to Hew to unravel the twisted threads and figure out the truth of the matter.

Candlemas

Candlemas
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2016-02-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857909088

Candlemas is the first instalment of 1588: A Calendar of Crime, a collection of short stories published in step with the sixteenth century calendar. On Candlemas eve an apprentice candle maker finds his master, John Blair, dead in his workshop, and the evidence points to the surgeon Sam Sturrock. Enlisted by Sturrock's desperate apprentice, Hew Cullan, together with his friend and physician Giles Locke, finds himself drawn into the investigation to uncover the truth of the matter. At first it seems like Blair's death is the result of reckless surgical practice, but as Hew delves deeper into the life of the candle maker he discovers a web of extortion. It seems John Blair was a man with many enemies ...

The Last Man in Europe

The Last Man in Europe
Author: Dennis Glover
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2017-11-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1468315927

This “riveting novel about Orwell’s last days” takes readers inside the renowned author’s mind as he creates his final dystopian masterpiece (New Statesman). April, 1947. In a run-down farmhouse on a remote Scottish island, George Orwell begins his last and greatest work, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Forty-three years old and suffering from the tuberculosis that within three winters will take his life, Orwell comes to see the book as his legacy—the culmination of a career spent fighting to preserve the freedoms which the wars and upheavals of the twentieth century have threatened. Completing the book is an urgent challenge, a race against death. In this masterful novel, Dennis Glover explores the creation of Orwell’s classic work which defined the twentieth century for millions of readers worldwide—and has continued to prove its unnerving relevance in the twenty-first. Simultaneously a captivating drama, a unique literary excavation, and an unflinching portrait of a writer, The Last Man in Europe will change the way we understand both our enduringly Orwellian times and Orwell’s timeless masterpiece.

Martinmas

Martinmas
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2016-11-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857909150

Martinmas is the fourth instalment of 1588: A Calendar of Crime, a collection of short stories published in step with the sixteenth century calendar. In St Salvator's college at the start of the academic year a young student claims that he has seen the ghost of a Spanish soldier. Giles and Hew dismiss this as the fevered product of a wild imagination; the students are unsettled by a spate of violent storms, and fears of the apocalypse readily resurge. In the close confines of college, they can be contained. But when a merchant dies, on the feast of St Martin known as 'killing time', with the words 'dead Spaniard' the last upon his lips, the terror of the students spills out to the streets, and Hew is called upon to rid the town of ghosts.

Yule

Yule
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2016-12-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857909169

Yule is the fifth instalment of 1588: A Calendar of Crime, a collection of short stories published in step with the sixteenth century calendar. Despite prohibitions on celebrating Yule, the old traditions still persist among the tenant farmers on Hew's estate at Kenly Green. Hew defends a tenant against both Kirk and Crown when a violent accident befalls an unwelcome guest who has turned up uninvited to the feast.

1588: A Calendar of Crime

1588: A Calendar of Crime
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857909118

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

Hue & Cry

Hue & Cry
Author: Shirley McKay
Publisher: Birlinn
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857900188

1579, St Andrews. Hew Cullan, a young lawyer, returns home from studying in Paris. But it proves to be a cold homecoming as Hew's friend, university regent Nicholas Colp, is accused of murdering a thirteen-year-old boy. The boy was a private pupil of Nicholas, and salacious gossip backed up by incriminating letters have him judged, convicted, and heading for the hangman's noose. Investigating the crime, Hew uncovers a dark tale of duplicity and passion amidst a world of religious piety and the chilling austerity of university life. From a case that seems to be open and shut, a Pandora's Box of lies and corruption emerges. Hue & Cry is the first in the must-read series of Hew Cullan Mysteries, for fans of thrilling historical fiction.