Something dark is happening in the city...

1579. A thirteen-year old boy meets his death on the streets of the university city of St Andrews and suspicion falls upon one of the regents at the university, Nicholas Colp. Hew Cullan, a young lawyer recently returned home from Paris, uncovers a complex tale of passion and duplicity, of sexual desire in tension with the repressive atmosphere of the Protestant Kirk and the austerity of the academic cloister.

The dark and intriguing story of 16th century lawyer Hew Cullan, is to be published by Polygon in 2009. Written by debut novelist Shirley McKay, Hue and Cry is the first in a series of historical crime fiction novels set in Scotland in the reign of James VI, featuring the young lawyer, Hew Cullan, who is a graduate of the University of St Andrews. The action takes place in St Andrews in 1579-80, in the town and university, and is rich in historical detail. It will appeal to fans of historical and crime fiction, as well as to those interested in social history and in St Andrews university and town. Although new to publication, Shirley had early success with this book when the opening chapters were shortlisted for the 2002 Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award for new writers in crime fiction. It has a strong and intricate plot.

Shirley's agent, John Beaton says that Shirley's work ‘follows in a strong tradition of literary historical crime fiction - it will put St Andrews on the crime fiction map just as surely as Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael books did with Shrewsbury.'

Shirley lives and writes in the picturesque fishing village of Crail in the East Neuk of Fife. Hue and Cry is her first novel and it will be published in June 2009. It will sit within the successful Polygon imprint of Birlinn Ltd and will keep company with popular crime writers including Perthshire writer Gillian Galbraith and Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year Award winner Allan Guthrie, and of course Alexander McCall Smith whose No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has sold more than 20 million copies in English language editions and in addition has been translated into 45 languages worldwide.