Philip Miller (PHILIP MILLER | Writer and Poet (philipmillerbooks.com)) is a writer and poet living in Edinburgh. He was an award-winning arts journalist for 20 years, and his published novels include The Goldenacre (2022), All The Galaxies (2017) and The Blue Horse (2015). His poetry has been published in print and online, and he received a RL Stevenson Fellowship in 2019. In 2024 Miller offered readers a crime thriller which has been very well received. The summary is as follows.
Investigative journalist Shona Sandison is attending the wedding of her closest friend and former colleague, Vivienne. But the night before the wedding, Vivienne’s reclusive school friend, Dan, jumps from a roof to his death. Shona is the only witness to the suicide – and so the only person who saw the occult tattoos covering Dan’s body, and heard the unsettling, mystical phrases he was uttering.
Compelled to look further into the tragic incident, Shona sets off on a quest to find out why Dan killed himself and what happened to Vivienne’s missing brother 20 years prior. Despite knowing that investigating Viv’s family will mean she could lose her friend forever, Shona travels to a small, forgotten town in the north of England to investigate an insular group of classmates who have held a dark secret for decades.
Miller takes us into a hypnotic dark world of subterfuge, betrayal, and fragile justice.
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368 pages in Birlinn General
First published 2024
ISBN: 9781846976483