With just one week to go until the release of the latest Anna Scavolini mystery, Women Who Kill, what better time to check out this exclusive sneak peek, consisting of the prologue and first two chapters?

Here’s a small snippet to whet your appetite:

‘Guilty.’

The word rings out like a tolling funeral bell. For a moment, no one reacts, each individual crammed into the airless room privately digesting the verdict. Then, somewhere in the public gallery, a deep, full-bodied yell rings out. It sounds a bit like yeeeeeaaAAHH! - but it’s less an actual, identifiable word than a raw, unfiltered expression of emotion. There’s triumph in there, but also deep, agonising pain, harboured silently throughout the long months of the trial. Another sound, no less incongruous, follows from the other end of the gallery: a strangled laugh - less because the situation is genuinely funny, perhaps, than because it’s the only means the person responsible possesses to release the tension bottled up inside them. As excitement spreads like an unstoppable wave, another voice rises above the wordless tumult.

‘Rot in hell, you murdering bitch!’