Description

Ireland 2003. Eve is a 29-year-old forensic scientist, raised on a remote hill farm. Her beloved father James has a stroke when a skeleton, hidden for three decades, is found on his bog conservation project. Now in an induced coma, Gardaí suspect him of murder. She privately investigates, ordering DNA tests as she suspects it is her gangster grandfather, Reg. She learns of Reg’s brutal past: he murdered his uncle in 1956 and his wife Charlotte in 1972. Suspected of both, he was charged with neither. Eve’s mother Vickie witnessed Charlotte’s death as a minor. Reg drugged and controlled her until James and his sister helped her flee to Ireland in a dramatic escape by dumb waiter and a bus-and-tube chase across London. Ireland 1973-74. Vickie overdoses whilst in rehab. James takes her to the family farm, where his mother Liz helps her recover. Vickie is pregnant, father unknown, and opts for adoption. She decides to keep her child after mistreatment in a Mother and Baby home and she escapes. Vickie and James fall in love and marry. Eve is born. When London police seek to question Vickie (18) alone, Reg tracks her to Ireland and abducts her. James intervenes with a digger. Reg fires twice, misses, then closes for the kill. James kills him in self-defence. Vickie has a breakdown. James hides the body in a bog. He floods the site to save her trauma and help curlew conservation. Vickie spends months in hospital, years in therapy. Eve enjoys an idyllic childhood with her devoted parents and grandmother.

Ireland 2003-04. Eve’s DNA tests reveal that Reg is her biological father. Spawned by a murderer, she has lived a lie,. Tormented and conflicted, she concludes that love defines her, not her genes. James stands trial for murder, his speech impaired. Liz has died, Vickie is unfit to testify, there is nobody to corroborate his account. A prosecution witness, Eve subtly reveals her incestuous conception to sway the jury. That inspires Vickie to testify. James is acquitted of murder, guilty of concealment. Curlews mate for life and outwit predators to raise their young – a metaphor for the survival of this family against extraordinary odds.

ISBN: 9781036997519