The dragon lady, Treger, Louisa

In a period of civil unrest before the War of Liberation, a wealthy and influential couple leave Britain to make a new life in 1950s Rhodesia.

From the glamorous Italian Riviera in the roaring twenties to the Art Deco glory of Eltham Palace in the thirties, from the secluded Scottish Highlands to sultry, segregated Rhodesia in the fifties, The Dragon Lady tells the story of the extraordinary life of Lady Virginia Courtauld, so-called for the exotic tattoo snaking up her leg.

Ostracized by society for being a foreign divorc e at the time of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, Ginie and her second husband Stephen Courtauld leave the confines of post-war Britain to forge a new life in Rhodesia, only to find that being progressive liberals during segregation proves mortally dangerous.

Subtly blending fact and fiction, deeply evocative of time and place in an era of great social change and threaded throughout with intrigue, the novel keeps the reader guessing from the outset who shot the Dragon Lady and why.