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“Rizzio,” a brief novel of historical treachery by the adventurous Scottish author Denise Mina, is set mostly in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Palace in early 1566. In residence at Holyrood is the 23-year-old ...

David Rizzio was the secretary for relations with France and a court favourite of Mary, Queen of Scots. But, having become deeply unpopular among the Scottish nobles, he was the target of a vicious ...

In March 1566, David Rizzio, the secretary and court favourite of Mary Queen of Scots, bit the dust at Holyrood Palace. Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get ...

This reimagining of the murder of David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is utterly absorbing, writes Roger Cox It always pays to read the acknowledgements at the end of a book. More ...

In Rizzio (Pegasus Crime, Sept.), Mina dramatizes the Tudor-era assassination of David Rizzio, the personal secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots. Where did the idea for this book come from? Rizzio is ...

In 2021, Polygon, an Edinburgh-based publisher, launched the Darkland Tales, a series of "dramatic fictional retellings of stories from history, myth and legend" written by Scotland's greatest ...

The crime writer’s daring, hard-boiled take on the brutal murder of Mary, Queen of Scots’ private secretary The story of Mary, Queen of Scots, so often characterised as a romance, was notably violent ...

One of the most shocking scenes in the upcoming Mary Queen of Scots movie comes when Mary Stuart, played by Saoirse Ronan, walks in on her husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley in bed with her gay male ...

Known chiefly as a writer of Tartan noir, Mina is also the author of short, punchy novellas on historical personages. The first, “Rizzio” (2021), chronicled the life and murder of David Rizzio, the ...