A Schooling in Murder

'Ten out of ten' The Times

'A grand piece of work - a triumph and one of Taylor's best' MICK HERRON

'A wonderfully unique novel from the master of historical crime fiction. Beautiful, haunting, and quite brilliant' LAURA SHEPHERD-ROBINSON

'As good as I'd expect from a master of the craft' VAL MCDERMID

'A wonderful, subtle novel, set in a strange, enclosed world. Beautiful writing and a gloriously satisfying ending' ANN CLEEVES

__________

England, May 1945

Monkshill Park School for Girls seems a world away from the violence that engulfed Europe during World War II. Yet its lonely, decaying grounds have witnessed a murder.

Annabel Warnock, a teacher with a secretive past, left for the holidays and never came back. Both teachers and girls assume she simply walked out, but the truth is quite different. Her body tumbled from the Maiden's Leap, a viewpoint on the clifftop Gothic Walk, and was washed out to sea.

But Annabel herself is still trapped at Monkshill, unable to move on. As she haunts the grounds and school, she discovers a hidden world - students, staff and servants are riven with deadly rivalries and dangerous tensions.

And one of them is her killer...

Andrew Taylor is the author of a number of crime novels, including the ground-breaking Roth Trilogy, which was adapted into the acclaimed drama Fallen Angel, and the historical crime novels The Ashes of London, The Silent Boy, and The American Boy, a No.1 Sunday Times bestseller and a 2005 Richard & Judy Book Club Choice.

He has won many awards, including the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award (the only author to win it three times) and the CWA's prestigious Diamond Dagger.