Description
Who do we love, and why? How do we protect our children? What separates us from the people we call monsters? This novel takes on one of the most controversial subjects and addresses the difficult questions that arise from it. It is one man's dark night of the soul, a meditation on the fears and temptations that haunt the lives of each of us.
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Towards the end of November 2002, Billy Tyler, a police constable in his mid-forties, is summoned to the mortuary of a hospital in Suffolk. For the next twelve hours, from seven in the evening till seven in the morning, he is responsible for guarding the body of a notorious child-killer. In the face of public hostility and media frenzy, Billy's job, as his superior puts it, is to 'make sure nothing happens'.As a seasoned police officer, Billy's approach is utterly professional, but as the night wears on, in the eerie silence of the hospital, the dead woman's presence begins to assert itself, and Billy's own problems and anxieties - a stalled career, a fractious marriage, a disabled daughter - gradually acquire a new and unexpected significance.
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