Tiger Sky tells the story of Joe, a village farmer who murdered his lover. I was interested in what would happen when his sentence was over and he returns to his village. How would his neighbours react and the wider world? I’m afraid I don’t paint a very pretty picture of small-minded vindictiveness and insensitivity (often worse) to Joe’s suffering. Then there are the outside characters who become involved in his fate: Natasha who has left N Y to begin a new life, Walter, the young editor of a political weekly, who becomes entangled with Natasha, Sheena who thinks she has only one ambition: to be the highest paid tabloid reporter ever, sex her best weapon. I guess I was trying to describe the lines between Christian morality which prizes forgiveness and the media weapons of vengeance and hype. Of course the theme arose out of my work for Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners. I hasten to add it is not a preachy book at all but filled with drama.

‘Without giving the plot away, this novel is a gripping, psychological treatment of one of the most difficult areas of public policy – the resettlement of offenders’ Boris Johnson in an interview with RB the Daily Telegraph

‘Shifting between the world of literary London and the bleak, raw landscape of the country, this tough expose of prejudice and baseness is shot through with insights about love and the redemptive power of forgiveness’ Good Housekeeping

‘Turns a searching eye on all of us … a disturbing and compelling read, sad, haunting and thought-provoking’ Birmingham Post

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  Bodily Harm
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  Lies and Loyalties