Brother Nothing

FROM THE WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE AND BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION.

Paris, 1369. The plague has returned. Philippe Gautier flees the capital with his young daughter, Nicole, to seek refuge in the town of his birth. There, among the woad fields of Picardy, he hopes to settle into a quiet post as Royal Provost.

But pestilence is not the only threat. The wife of one of the town’s wealthiest merchants has been found murdered, strung up in the dyers' quarter, dressed as an angel.

Philippe is tasked with bringing her killer to justice, but the town already has its culprit locked in the keep: a travelling performer of miracle plays, who insists he is innocent of this crime but deserving of punishment for his many other transgressions. Now he means to make a full confession.

As Philippe is drawn into the prisoner’s tale of love and loss, of vanished children and decades-old corruption, he and Nicole find themselves at the centre of a dangerous web of secrets and superstition. With the invading English army closing in outside the walls, Philippe begins to understand that the prisoner’s story and its mysteries have yet to reach their final act, and that he too must play a part.

A gothic detective story of love and loss, vanished children, ruined castles, plague ships, and the shadows of superstition and sorcery, from the electrifying author of Glorious Exploits...