“Absolutely superb—grips like a vice throughout and has a perfect, bold ending that no one will see coming. An utter masterpiece of the murder mystery and the legal thriller genre.”—Sophie Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done and The Monogram Murders

“A legal thriller unlike any you’ve ever read, this mind-melting page-turner is Tyce at her whip-smart best.”—Ellery Lloyd, author of The Club

Internationally bestselling author Harriet Tyce returns with a page-turning thriller involving three teenage girls, one murdered classmate, and a chilling modern-day witch trial that will leave readers breathless.

Let the Witch Trial begin . . .

When eighteen-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in a park, the city of Edinburgh is stunned—and the shock only deepens when police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, with the murder. As social media explodes in a tizzy of theories and headlines scream for justice, rumors of bullying are overshadowed by something more wicked and frightening: whispers of dark rituals, feverish obsession, and a teenage pact gone wrong.

When the trial begins, everyone in Edinburgh clamors for a front-row ticket to the show: to look upon the murderous Eliza and Isobel with their own eyes. Everyone, that is, but Matthew Phillips, a respected heart surgeon picked for the jury. But, as the trial unfolds—and the girls’ lawyers offer a surprising and unsettling defense—the reluctant Matthew finds himself questioning everything: the motives, the evidence, even his own judgement. Then he begins to have strange visions of terrifying things—hallucinations he tells himself. After all, witchcraft isn’t real . . . or is it?

Who is telling the truth? Who can be trusted?

And what really happened to Christian Shaw?

A Lesson in Cruelty: The propulsive new thriller from the bestselling author of Blood Orange