The Crocodile Bird
When her mother, Eve, tells Liza that she must leave their remote home, the gatehouse of a country mansion, Liza is terrified. Although seventeen years of age, she has never been on a bus or a train, has never played with a child of her own age.. She has almost no knowledge of a world described by her mother as evil and destructive. Their strange enclosed Life together is over because Eve has killed a man. And he is not the first. With £100 in cash, Liza is cast adrift. However, she is not alone. There is one particular secret that she has kept from her mother – her love affair with a young man who lived in the big house. With him, gradually Liza learns about the world, about herself, and must come to terms with the possibility that the murderous violence of her mother may be present in her.
Simisola
Only eighteen black people live in Kingsmarkham. One is Wexford’s new Doctor, Raymond Akande. When the doctor’s daughter, Melanie, goes missing, the chief inspector takes more than just a professional interest in the case. Melanie, just down from university but unable to find a job, disappeared somewhere between the Benefit Office and the bus stop. Or at least no one saw her get on the bus when it came. According to her parents, Melanie was happy at home. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend but, until now, there had been no cause to worry about her. And no one liked to voice the suspicion that might have happened, that Melanie might be dead ...