Death And The Virgin Chris Skidmore (Phoenix, £8.99) Did she fall or was she pushed? Cumnor Place, near Oxford, was the remote country hideaway chosen by Elizabeth I’s supposed lover Robert Dudley, to keep his wife, Amy Robsart, away from his courtly shenanigans. Spanish spies reported that he planned to poison her so that he could marry the queen. Then one day, when all her servants were at Abingdon Fair, Amy was found dead at the foot of the stairs. Skidmore makes the most of the story and leaves no archive uncovered, even the Spanish and Vatican state papers, as well as Amy’s and Dudley’s correspondence. It’s a great historical whodunnit, magnificently told. But in the end, he has to admit that we are no nearer the truth now than the gossips in an Abingdon tavern on September 8, 1560, already speculating whether it was murder or suicide. “For the historian, unlike the detective,” he writes, “the dead can only reveal so much.” However, the author does point out that if the murderer was Dudley or one of his associates, then the act backfired badly, since the queen could not possibly marry him once the suspicious rumours started circulating.

Sixteen Shades of Crazy Rachel Trezise (Blue Door, £7.99) I picked this up thinking from the cover that it was chick-lit, but it’s more of an unromantic comedy. It’s set in a South Wales valley, where three women are living alcohol and drug-befuddled lives of quiet desperation, married to the members of local punk band The Boobs. Then Johnny, a drug dealer from Cornwall, comes to town and the valley trio fall in love with him. But the story has a satisfying end as two of the Welsh women prove they aren’t quite as stupid as they look.

My Last Duchess Daisy Goodwin (Headline, £6.99) Broadcaster and poetry-lover Goodwin’s first novel is as stylish as you might expect. It tells the story of US heiress Cora, who marries into a family of stuffy British aristocrats. Henry James with a modern touch, set on the Dorset coast in a larger-than-life Lulworth Castle.