The Angelmaker

Book excerpt: When the body of a missing child is found in a small English village, Lydia Allinson, widowed with two children, becomes increasingly drawn to the case, through her detective brother's pursuit of the truth. Thus, the history of the village, her own loss and need to survive amid the provincial prejudices of middle England lead her to start new loves and seek a closer understanding of the reasons why a two-year-old child would be beaten to death. An understanding that leads her and her brother to the truth. Hidden in the mild mannered cottages of a biscuit tin village, lies a history of brutality in colonial Kenya, and the disguised dissatisfactions of those trying to bury the past or start a new life.