In Guilty Night - Softcover

Alison G. Taylor

3.55

75 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140254439 ISBN 13: 9780140254433

Publisher: Penguin, 1997

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On a freezing November night, 14-year-old Arwel Thomas, a victim of sexual abuse and on the run from a children's home, is found dead in a railway tunnel outside Bangor. DCI Michael McKenna and his colleagues are drawn in to the relationships and power struggles surrounding Arwel and his peers in the claustrophobic world of childcare institutions where nothing and no one can be taken at face value, where ethical structures collapse in the face of expediency and greed, and where Elias ab Elis and his wife, blessed with worldly wealth, are cursed and impoverished by Elis' dark past and their own tragedy. McKenna finds families existing in a twilight of ignorance and stupidity, children consigned to the scrap-heap of life, and is forced to confront his own frailties through his involvement with Elis, and with Carol, Arwel's older sister. Arwel was the centre of his sister's universe, and his death causes a psychological upheaval of cataclysmic proportions.

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From the Inside Flap:

On a freezing November night, 14-year-old Arwel Thomas, turns up dead in a railway tunnel outside Bangor, an apparent victim of sexual abuse and a runaway from the local children's home.

DCI Michael McKenna and his colleagues are slowly drawn in to the web of relationships and power struggles surrounding Arwel and his peers in the claustrophobic world of childcare institution, where nothing and no one can be taken at face value and ethical structures bow to expediency and greed. A world in which they find Elias ab Elis and his wife, blessed with worldly wealth, lurking in the shadows, cursed and impoverished by their own dark tragedies.

In this dark world McKenna finds families existing in a twilight of ignorance and stupidity and children consigned to the scrap-heap of life. Forced to confront his own frailties through his investigations, McKenna must probe the underbelly of this seamy culture in order to get at the truth, however destructive it may be.
From the Paperback edition.

About the Author:

Born into an Anglo-Welsh family, and brought up in rural Cheshire and Derbyshire, Alison Taylor studied architecture before commencing a career in social work and probation. She has been instrumental in exposing the abuse of children in care, and has written a number of papers on childcare and ethics. Resident for many years in North Wales, she is married with two children. Her interests include classical and Baroque music, art and riding. She is currently working on a second novel and researching a biographical study of Beethoven. Alison Taylor's first novel Simeon's Bride (published in paperback by Penguin) won wide acclaim. This powerful second book establishes her as a formidable new talent in contemporary fiction.

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