Shadow of the Serpent

’David Ashton’s writing is excellent, his characters thoroughly convincing, and his narrative grabs you - I was going to say, by the throat - and doesn’t let you go.’ - The Sherlock Holmes Society of London

‘McLevy is a sort of Presbyterian Morse with a heart, prowling the mean wynds and tenements of the endless fascinating city. David Ashton impeccably evokes Edinburgh so vividly that you can feel the cold in your bones and the menace of the Old Town’s steep cobbles and dark corners.’ – Financial Times

The first in the McLevy series , this is wonderfully evocative detective fiction, based in dark, violent, Victorian Edinburgh. It’s 1880 and the city is gripped by election fever. But while the rich and educated argue about politics, in the dank wynds of the city it’s a struggle just to stay alive, especially when a murderous madman seems to have resurfaced after thirty years. A prostitute is brutally slain and Inspector McLevy makes it his mission to find the killer, having failed the first time round. But his questioning leads him somewhere far more dangerous than the labyrinth of Leith. It leads him into a world of politics, perversion, deception and mystery and into the shadow of the serpent.

David Ashton was born in Greenock in 1941. He studied at Central Drama School, London, from 1964 to 1967. David started writing in 1984 and he has seen many of his plays and TV adaptations broadcast – he wrote early episodes of EastEnders and Casualty, and four McLevy series of for BBC Radio 4. A 90-minute film of McLevy has been commissioned by STV.