A Step So Grave

"puts a stylish spin on the traditional country house murder...an intricate plot worthy of Dorothy L. Sayers or Agatha Christie at her finest." --Publishers Weekly, (Starred Review)
"A sophisticated, elegantly written, intensely powerful mystery, the best of an excellent series." --Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)


1930s Scotland
Wedding bells are set to ring as Dandy Gilver with family in tow, arrives in windswept Wester Ross on Valentine's Day. They've come to celebrate Lady Lavinia's fiftieth birthday and to meet her daughter Mallory, a less-than-suitable bride-to-be for Dandy's son Donald.

But soon love is the last thing on Dandy's mind when the news breaks that Lady Lavinia has been found dead, brutally murdered in the middle of her famous knot garden.
Strange superstitions and folklore abound among the Gaelic-speaking locals. But, Dandy suspects that the tangled boughs and branches around Applecross House hide something much more earthly at work . . .

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. In 2012 Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains was nominated for a Historical Macavity Award. Catriona writes full-time and divides her time between southern Scotland and northern California.