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    The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne
    Unavailable
    The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne
    Unavailable
    The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne
    Ebook367 pages3 hours

    The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne

    By Andrew Nicoll

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "A mystery that touches the heart, with characters caught in a world that's harsh but trembles with tender emotions. A beautiful story."
    JAMES NAUGHTIE, BBC Radio 4

    When the door opened and he came out, there came with him the stench of a dead thing, the sweet, sulphurous, warm, rotten chicken smell that only ever comes from unburied flesh.

    A dead body is found in a locked house. It has been stabbed in a frenzy, the hands and feet bound, the skull smashed, false teeth knocked from its jaws. Blood pools around the corpse and drips from the staircase. Yet nothing is missing: money and valuables remain untouched. Who could have murdered an old woman in such a horrifying way? And why?

    This is the mystery facing Sergeant John Fraser and Detective Lieutenant Trench when wealthy spinster Miss Jean Milne is murdered in the quiet seaside town of Broughty Ferry. Yet, despite an abundance of clues and apparent witnesses, the investigation proves troublesome: suspects are elusive and Miss Milne herself is found to be far from a model of propriety. And when sensational headlines put pressure on the police force to find a culprit, Fraser and Trench must work fast to prevent the wrong man from going to the gallows. But will they ever unravel the secret life and curious death of Miss Jean Milne?

    REVIEWS

    "Nicoll takes a true story and builds it into a twisting piece of prose with an unexpected shift towards the end."
    DAILY EXPRESS (****, Summer’s Most Addictive Crime Fiction)

    "Beautifully Done."
    THE SUN

    "The sense of setting and era are spot on, and the dusky streets of Scotland are suitably spooky."
    HEAT MAGAZINE

    "A superb read, the sort of book that keeps you compulsively turning pages."
    UNDISCOVERED SCOTLAND

    "Nicoll offers a plausible, if shocking, solution to the crime at the end...in the style of the best Agatha Christie. The writing of a Christie-esque novel in the 21st century, however, requires a fresh and lively narrative, coupled with a wry and critical humour, to make it feel compellingly modern enough. Nicoll achieves that and more by bringing us, sometimes uncomfortably so, closer to our sins of the past."
    THE NATIONAL

    "An intelligent crime novel with secrets, passion and great characters - just a great murder mystery."
    PORTOBELLO BOOK BLOG

    "A triumph of tone, very moving, completely convincing."
    ANDREW MARR on The Good Mayor

    "An exuberant, whirlwind read, with a glint of steel beneath the frothy plot."
    THE GUARDIAN on The Good Mayor

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlack & White Publishing
    Release dateJun 11, 2015
    ISBN9781845029838
    Unavailable
    The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne
    Author

    Andrew Nicoll

    After a brief stint as a lumberjack, Andrew Nicoll has spent his working life as a newspaper journalist. He has had short stories published in New Writing Scotland and other magazines. Andrew is married with three children and lives in Broughty Ferry near Dundee in Scotland. This is his first novel.

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    Reviews for The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      This is such a brilliant read. Just when you think things are sorted out, WHAM, you get hit between the eyes.
    • 4/5
      In a hurry to catch a flight i picked this up in an airport and hoped for the best but in truth didn't expect too much. The only strand that I held onto was that it was based on actual events. I began reading and it took me several pages to adjust to the style as the narrators voice was quite old fashioned a tad brittle but all the time having an air of correctness about him. The story's set in Scotland in 1912 or there about and its brilliant once you get used to his way of speaking. It's also quite funny in places with the way they speak and act or talk to each other. It's one of the few books that keeps you there, right there, all the way to the end.