Macbeth is an honorable Scottish lord who serves an ignoble king. When Malcolm finally goes too far, Macbeth and his wife convince themselves that Malcolm must die. (Encounters with a trio of strange women also swayed their minds.) Macbeth himself becomes king but guilt and paranoia start eating away at him and his wife.

Hartley and Hewson retell Shake­speare’s classic play as a novel, providing psy­cho­log­i­cal motivation for Macbeth’s usurpation and downfall. Their Lady Macbeth is more sym­pa­thet­ic and less nakedly ambitious than she is usually portrayed.