Anna Legat is best known for her crime thrillers and murder mysteries. Her debut novel, Life Without Me – a flamboyant mash-up of satire, suspense and magic realism – was released in 2015 (Accent Press). Her flint-sharp DI Gillian Marsh detective series and her deceptively charming cosy mysteries The Shires followed, published by Headline.

Murder isn’t the only thing on Anna’s mind. She has always been a closet time traveller and recently resolved to turn her hand to writing historical fiction. In 2023, Buried in the Past, her first historical novel was published by Sharpe Books. Set in Nazi-occupied Poland, it is the story of two young men from the same community, yet of very diverse backgrounds, caught in the atrocities of the brutal occupation whilst trying to navigate the confusing landscape of the retreating Nazis and the advancing Red Army.

Anna’s second historical novel, The Queen’s Avenger, is scheduled for release in May 2024. It revisits the tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots from an unorthodox angle. It is narrated by Ninian Winzet, Mary’s confessor and guardian. He is also a zealous and uncompromising defender of Catholicism in Scotland. When his queen is charged with the murder of her husband, Ninian embarks on a mission to unmask the real regicides and to exact his own justice upon them.

The themes of murder, suspense and shady political machinations will return in Anna’s historical crime series, A Case for Copernicus, set in Renaissance Europe at the turn of the XV century. The first case should be solved by mid-2025.

Anna read European political history when studying for her law degree. Apart from writing, she has been making a living as a lawyer, a teacher, a silver-service waitress and a librarian (not all at the same time). She has lived in far-flung places but has now settled in a small town near the historical city of Bath.