Phil Miller’s novel The Goldenacre has won the Shamus Award for the Best First P.I. Novel, in the Private Eye Writers of America Awards. This is an outstanding achievement and well deserved.

What the media are saying:

‘Philip Miller is a fine, painterly writer – Edinburgh at dusk, for example, is “a weave of shadows hung in a net of light” – and he has created a first-class thriller’ – The Times

‘The Goldenacre features a dense cast of vivid characters, not least Tallis, a tortured pilgrim worthy of a Graham Greene tale. The book—which explores through prose the interplay between light and darkness in the physical and moral worlds—is an ambitious and wonderfully realized work’ – The Wall Street Journal

‘Unusual and elegant, Philip Miller’s third novel takes the Tartan Noir genre in some new and unexpected directions’ –The Scotsman

‘[An]outstanding mystery thriller…In a style recalling the brutal dreariness of Le Carre, Miller describes a pivotal character as ‘sharp and severe as a snapped bone.’ It’s also an apt description of this biting tale of society in decline. Noir fans won’t want to miss it’ – Publishers Weekly

‘Its vivid sense of location is one of this engaging mystery’s great strengths’ – The Herald

‘A gripping exploration of the darker side of modern society’ – Lovereading

‘The Goldenacre occupies its own unclassifiable space, as much a meditation on beauty and loss as it is crime fiction’ – Airmail

‘[There is] more than a hint of Graeme Greene about it’ Alistair Braidwood