White Sand — Simon Kerr

The War. Northern Ireland. 1972. Mary McCandless is a widow, mother of five, and refugee of the Loyalist pogroms in East Belfast, trying desperately to survive in her new neighbourhood, Donard Flats, West Belfast, where street battles rage daily between the British Army and the Provisional I.R.A. Mary is a Protestant who converted to Catholicism to marry her late husband. The people of Donard Flats do not want her living there. Rumour has it she is a Brit spy. When she helps a British soldier, dying on her doorstep, the I.R.A. has to make a public example of her. Donal Keenan is the I.R.A. Volunteer ordered to abduct and interrogate Mary. He is not supposed to kill her, just terrorise her, but the violence of his actions, and an attempt at a cover-up, will haunt the I.R.A. for decades. Loosely based on the real-life-and-death story of Disappeared victim, Jean McConville, this is a novel about the war, and the war crimes committed by all parties to the conflict. 'Simon Kerr is a fine writer -- readers should pay close attention to him.' - PATRICK McCABE 'WHITE SAND is powerful, dramatic and intensely engaging. I hope that this unusual, sure-to-be-controversial novel about shimmering layers of unreality will meet with deserved acclaim!' - JOYCE CAROL OATES