The Winter Ground

Times are hard for a struggling family circus in the long, cold winter of 1925. With their sons off in America and the last of their big cats long gone, Pa and Ma Cooke are more than happy to accept the offer of free winter standing on the remote Blackcraig estate in Perthshire in return for a few shows to the Wilson family around Christmas time.

Wealthy but brash Albert Wilson is cock-a-hoop to find himself the centre of a circle of bright young things from around the county, agog for the circus and ready to endure his company to get at it.

With the threat of revolution blowing in from the east on the icy gales, Hugh Gilver is less pleased to see the troupe Prebrezhensky ensconced in the valley but the Gilver boys, especially, cannot get enough of Tiny Truman the midget, Andrew Merryman the giant, not to mention the mysterious and beautiful Anastasia, bare-back rider and troublemaker combined.

When Ma Cooke asks for Dandy's help to get to the bottom of a string of spiteful tricks at the winter ground, Hugh gives his approval, one eye on the bank balance as always. But the fun runs out when the silly tricks take a darker turn, leaving one of the performers dead and the Cooke, Wilson and Gilver families fractured amid whispers of murder.

“Praise for the Dandy Gilver series:”

A jaunty romp with a gripping ending... delightful - Observer

As ever, McPherson's research is exhaustive and she captures the patois of the circus people beautifully . . . At the circus, things don't quite turn out as Dandy expects but this simply makes McPherson's delightful tale all the more enjoyable. - Herald

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Dan Brown meets Barbara Pym . . . Dandy is brisk, baffled, heroic, kindly, scandalised and - above all - very funny - Guardian

McPherson is on to a winner with her 1920s society sleuth Dandy Gilver, who is the most engaging and ingenious crime-cracker I've met in ages. She is gauche but perceptive, married but unromantic (although there's a lovely frisson to her co-solver), sly but endearingly innocent. The period detail is accomplished and convincing, the crime is neatly convoluted and McPherson's prose bristles with clever asides under a lucid surface. I wouldn't be surprised if she is translated on to the small screen soon, and I can't wait for her next adventure. - Scotland on Sunday on AFTER THE ARMISTICE BALL

Dandy Gilver is an enthralling heroine; part Dorothy Parker, part Miss Marple, utterly engaging. [Catriona] can send chills up your spine and provoke a fit of the giggles in the space of a few short pages. Absolutely wonderful - Kirsty Scott

McPherson is an exemplary crime writer, effortlessly balancing the driest wit with melodramatic suspense. Her range of reference is seriously literary, her research impeccable, and her exuberance with period detail utterly beguiling. And Dandy herself is wonderful: blundering bravely through this mad and murky tale with perfect aplomb and a drop-dead vocabulary, she is a lesson to us all. - Scotsman

Compelling - Publishers Weekly starred review

Catriona McPherson was born in the village of Queensferry in south-east Scotland in 1965 and educated at Edinburgh University. She left with a PhD in Linguistics and spent a few years as a university lecturer before beginning to write fiction. The first Dandy Gilver novel was short-listed for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger 2005 and the second was long-listed for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award 2007. Catriona writes full-time and lives on a farm in Galloway.

Times are hard for a struggling family circus in the long, cold winter of 1925. With their sons off in America and the last of their big cats long gone, Pa and Ma Cooke are more than happy to accept the offer of free winter standing on the remote Blackcraig estate in Perthshire in return for a few shows to the Wilson family around Christmas time. Wealthy but brash Albert Wilson is cock-a-hoop to find himself the centre of a circle of bright young things from around the county, agog for the circus and ready to endure his company to get at it.With the threat of revolution blowing in from the east on the icy gales, Hugh Gilver is less pleased to see the troupe Prebrezhensky ensconced in the valley but the Gilver boys, especially, cannot get enough of Tiny Truman the midget, Andrew Merryman the giant, not to mention the mysterious and beautiful Anastasia, bare-back rider and troublemaker combined.When Ma Cooke asks for Dandy's help to get to the bottom of a string of spiteful tricks at the winter ground, Hugh gives his approval, one eye on the bank balance as always. But the fun runs out when the silly tricks take a darker turn, leaving one of the performers dead and the Cooke, Wilson and Gilver families fractured amid whispers of murder.

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