The Goldenacre – a masterpiece by the painter and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh – has been given to the people of Scotland. The beautiful canvas, the last work by the artistic genius, enthrals the art world, but behind it lies a dark and violent mystery.
Thomas Tallis, an art expert with a trouble past, is trying to uncover the truth about the painting's complex history, while dogged newspaper reporter Shona Sandison is investigating a series of shocking murders in Edinburgh.
Both investigators soon become engulfed in the machinations of money, crime and identity in a literary thriller set amid the seen and unseen forces at work in modern Scotland.
“A riveting, brutal journey into the high stakes world of legacy art and inherited wealth.” DENISE MINA, author of the Garnethill trilogy and The Long Drop
“Beautifully written, with a brilliantly vivid sense of place and a killer twist, The Goldenacre is one to savour.” LIAM MCILVANNEY, author of The Quaker
'Art, music, politics, and murder, set against a backdrop of one of the most beautiful cities in the world - what's not to love? A complex and compelling plot, with intruiging characters that I very much hope we will meet again.' Lesley Kelly, writer of the Health of Strangers series and A Fine House in Trinity
'Phil Miller's Edinburgh is a city of secrets, an introverted place filled with characters so real in their humanity and yet somehow askew, imbued with the touch of supernatural shadows but also unshakeable goodness. Elegiac, moving, but always richly humane, Goldenacre is a welcome addition to Scottish noir' Jacky Copleton, author of A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding