Mistress Of The Just Land (Jean Brash)

by David Ashton

'Jean Brash is my favourite character and David Ashton's writing is as delicious, elegant and compelling as she is' Siobhan Redmond (Jean Brash in BBC Radio 4's McLevy series)

Jean Brash, who first appeared in BBC Radio 4's Inspector McLevy mysteries, is a formidable woman in her prime. Once a child of the streets, she is now Mistress of the Just Land, the best bawdy-hoose in Edinburgh and her pride and joy. But a murder in her establishment could wreck everything.

New Year's Day - and through the misty streets of Victorian Edinburgh an elegant, female figure walks the cobblestones - with a certain vengeful purpose. Jean Brash, the Mistress of the Just Land, brings her cool intelligence to solving a murder, a murder that took place in her own bawdy-hoose.
A prominent judge, strangled and left dangling, could bring her whole life to ruin and she didn't haul herself off the streets, up through low dirty houses of pleasure and violent vicious men - to let that come to pass. The search for the killers will take Jean back into her own dark past as she uncovers a web of political and sexual corruption in the high reaches of the Edinburgh establishment.
A young boy's death long ago is demanding justice but, as the body count increases, she has little time before a certain Inspector James McLevy comes sniffing round like a wolf on the prowl.
Jean may be on the side of natural justice but is she on the side of the law? Or will the law bring her down?

• ISBN10: 1444837354
• ISBN13: 9781444837353
• Publish Date: 1 July 2018 (first published 8 September 2016)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 27 December 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Charnwood
• Edition: Large type / large print edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Brothel owner to detective Not content with playing with the detective James McLevy, Ashton turns his attention to Jean Brash, Mistress of the Just Land, a high class brothel. After the New Year's Day celebrations a body is found in the Just Land, one of their clients. Well aware that this could lead back to them they decide to investigate, while McLevy is investigating first one and then more similar deaths.
It's complex and interesting and the reasoning is pretty good.