In Her Shadow: An absolutely gripping Times Thriller of the Month

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

Dave Kellock is known in Portobello as dependable, generous, impossible to fault. He volunteers, he shows up, he helps. When his name appears on the King’s Honours List, the recognition feels inevitable. It is also dangerous. Public attention has a way of loosening what has been carefully held in place.

In Her Shadow follows the quiet collapse of a man whose life has been built on concealment. Dave’s past is not simply private but fraudulent, and once scrutiny begins, it cannot be redirected. When a local teenage girl goes missing, suspicion settles quickly, fed by rumour and the uneasy sense that something about Dave has never quite added up.

Set in Edinburgh, the novel explores how communities create their heroes and how readily they turn on them. It is attentive to reputation, masculinity, and the stories people tell to protect themselves. As the search intensifies, the question is not only whether the girl will be found, but what will surface when a long-maintained lie is finally exposed to light.