Black Widow

Winner of the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year and finalist for the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger Award

From a master of superbly crafted thrillers, the award-winning Black Widow tells the potent story of a woman who thought she was too late for love, the man who falls for her ambition, and the secret selves that are poised, at any moment, to end everything.

Diana Jager is clever, strong, and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog against sexism in medicine. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing. Then she meets Peter. He is kind, generous, and knows nothing about her past—the second chance she’s been waiting for. Within six months, they are married, within six more, Peter is dead in a road accident, a nightmare end to their fairy-tale romance. But Peter’s sister Lucy doesn’t believe in fairy tales and tasks disgraced reporter Jack Parlabane with discovering the dark truth behind the woman the media are calling the Black Widow. Still reeling from his divorce, Jack’s investigation into matters of the heart takes him to hidden places, online and off, most would never dream of having to go.

Christopher Brookmyre was a journalist before publishing his award-winning debut, Quite Ugly One Morning. He is the author of the Jack Parlabane thriller series, which has sold more than one million copies in the UK alone, and the acclaimed Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod novels. He has won many awards for his work, including the McIlvanney Prize for Best Scottish Crime Novel of the Year, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, and the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award.