🔎 'A delight! A plot at once playful and disturbing, and a wonderfully satisfying surprise ending. McPherson is a terrific storyteller' ANN CLEEVES 🔎

Edinburgh, 1948. Welfare Officer Helen Crowther has enough on her plate between her hectic job, her complicated love life, and her growing reputation as a troublemaker. Last year's scandal did nothing to help with the disapproval she already gets as a woman in her line of work.

All she wants now is to focus on doing what she loves: helping the poor of the Fountainbridge ward in the city of Edinburgh. The last thing she needs is another string of murders to distract her . . .

But when a gentleman dressed in working-man's clothing winds up dead right under Helen's nose, and she catches her own father in a very risky lie, Helen is propelled back into the dark world where class rules, justice is hard to come by and gruesome death is everywhere.

Helen has already learned some hard truths about her city, but this investigation is about to reveal just how deep corruption can go . . .

'An intricately plotted mystery with wonderfully original (nasty, but not gory) murders. The rich period detail and use of local dialect immediately whisk you away to post-war Edinburgh. Hugely enjoyable!' FIONA LEITCH