The Blood Doctorby Barbara Vine - a crime masterpiece about ambition, obsession and bad blood

'An outstandingly original book'Sunday Times

The current Lord Nanther, experiencing the reform of the House of Lords, embarks on a biography of his great-grandfather, the first Lord Nanther, favoured physician to Queen Victoria, expert on blood diseases and particularly the royal disease of haemophilia. What he uncovers begins to horrify him as he realizes that Nanther died a guilty man - carrying a horrific secret to the grave.

Weaving effortlessly between past and present, public life and private life,The Blood Doctoris a superbly satisfying novel that will be adored by readers of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow.

'A magnificent novel'Daily Mail

'Intriguing and absorbing and wholly satisfying'Spectator
'Plotted with a jeweller's intricacy and ominous to the final sentence'Sunday Telegraph

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, includingA Fatal InversionandKing Solomon's Carpetwhich both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include:A Dark Adapted Eye;The House of Stairs;Gallowglass;Asta's Book;No Night Is Too Long;In the Time of His Prosperity;The Brimstone Wedding;The Chimney Sweeper's Boy;Grasshopper;The Blood Doctor;The Minotaur;The Birthday PresentandThe Child's Child.