The Goldenacre – a masterpiece by the painter and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh – has been given to the people of Scotland. The beautiful canvas, the last work by the artistic genius, enthrals the art world, but behind it lies a dark and violent mystery. Thomas Tallis, an art expert with a trouble past, is trying to uncover the truth about the painting's complex history, while dogged newspaper reporter Shona Sandison is investigating a series of shocking murders in Edinburgh.

Both investigators soon become engulfed in the machinations of money, crime and identity in a literary thriller set amid the seen and unseen forces at work in modern Scotland.

Philip Miller lives in Edinburgh. An award-winning journalist for twenty years, he is now a civil servant. His previous novels include The Blue Horse and All the Galaxies, and his poetry has been published online and in print.