Gillian Galbraith

Gillian Galbraith was born in Coupar Angus, Perthshire, in January 1957. She was educated at a convent and at the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee. Following careers in dish-washing, bookselling and journalism she was called to the Scottish Bar in 1987.

Her first novel BLOOD IN THE WATER, introducting Edinburgh detective Alice Rice, was published in 2007 and in that same year, optimism to the fore, she abandoned her legal practice in order to concentrate on her writing. Her second novel, WHERE THE SHADOW FALLS, also featuring DI Alice Rice, was published by Birlinn in Spring 2008.

Gillian's third Alice Rice novel, DYING OF THE LIGHT, will be published by Birlinn in April 2009.

Gillian lives happily in Kinross-shire with her husband Robert, daughter Daisy, and assorted other creatures.

Midwinter, a freezing night in Leith, near Edinburgh's red light district. A policewoman's flashlight stabs the darkness in a snow-covered cemetery. The circle of light stops on a colourless, dead face. So begins the hunt for a serial murderer of prostitutes in Gillian Galbraith's third Alice Rice mystery, 'The Dying of the Light'. Partly inspired by the real-life killings of prostitutes in Ipswich, this novel explores a hidden world where sex is bartered for money and drugs. Off-duty, Alice's home life continues its uneven course. Her romance with the artist Ian Melville offers the prospect of happiness, but is plagued by insecurity. Her demented but determined neighbour, Miss Spinnell, offers a new challenge to Alice's patience at every meeting. This atmospheric thriller builds on the success of the first two Alice Rice mysteries, 'Blood in the Water' and 'Where the Shadow Falls', and it is Gillian Galbraith's most accomplished novel yet.