'McLevy is a sort of Victorian Morse with a heart.' - Financial Times

The third in David Ashton’s series of McLevy thrillers, A Trick of the Light sees McLevy team up with Arthur Conan Doyle to pursue a ruthless killer.

'David Ashton, like Robert Louis Stevenson or Ian Rankin, is inspired by the beauty-and-beast nature of Edinburgh. His interpretation of James McLevy is worthy of the original man,’ - The Sherlock Holmes Society of London

It is 1860 and a Confederate officer, Jonathen Sinclair, arrives in Edinburgh with a sheaf of money to purchase a blockade-runner from Clydeside shipbuilders. He is betrayed to the Union forces and is shot dead by their secret agents. Who are they and where is Sinclair's money? McLevy investigates in this thrilling tale of corruption.

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When the body of a handsome man is found, garotted, on the Newcastle to Edinburgh train the first port of call is Inspector James McLevy. David Ashton brings us another thrilling mystery full of a cast of familiar favourites.

’Dripping with melodrama and derring-do.’ - The Herald

The second in a new series of McLevy books, Fall from Grace revolves around the terrible Tay Bridge disaster.

'McLevy is one of the great psychological creations and Ashton is the direct heir to Robert Louis Stevenson.' - Brian Cox, star of the BBC Radio 4 McLevy plays

Known as the father of forensics and a likely influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, real-life police inspector James McLevy is here reinvented by David Ashton in this the first thrilling Inspector McLevy Mystery, Shadow of the Serpent.