What if one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists also happened to be its most unlikely detective?

In Oscar de Muriel’s new novel, The End of Vodka, Frida Kahlo becomes an unlikely detective, drawn into the mystery surrounding the death of socialite and actress Dorothy Hale, who fell — or was pushed — from a Manhattan skyscraper in 1938. Alongside politician and diplomat Clare Boothe Luce, Kahlo begins to uncover a web of secrets stretching far beyond one woman’s death.

At the centre of the novel lies one of the twentieth century’s most haunting artworks: Kahlo’s controversial painting “The Suicide of Dorothy Hale”, commissioned as a memorial and delivered instead as a brutally direct depiction of Hale’s death. From that historical detail, de Muriel spins a rich, immersive literary thriller alive with politics, glamour, artistic ambition, and emotional betrayal.

Oscar will be in conversation with SJ Bennett, the bestselling crime novelist best known for her Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series, translated into more than 20 languages.