A Granite Silence

<p><b><i>A Granite Silence</i> is an exploration - a journey through time to a particular house, in a particular street, Urquhart Road, Aberdeen in 1934, where eight-year-old Helen Priestly lives with her mother and father.</b><br><br> Among this long, grey corridor of four-storey tenements, a daunting expanse of granite, working families are squashed together like pickled herrings in their narrow flats. Here are Helen's neighbours: the Topps, the Josses, the Mitchells, the Gordons, the Donalds, the Coulls and the Hunts.<br><br>Returning home from school for her midday meal, Helen is sent by her mother Agnes to buy a loaf from the bakery at the end of the street. Agnes never sees her daughter alive again.<br><br> Nina Allan explores the aftermath of Helen's disappearance, turning a probing eye to the close-knit neighbourhood - where everyone knows everyone, at least by sight - and with subtlety and sympathy, explores the intricate layers of truth and falsehood that can coexist in one moment of history.<br><br><b>Full of echoes, allusions and eerie diversions, <i>A Granite Silence</i> is an investigation into a notorious true crime case, but also a stylish, imaginative inquiry into who gets to tell a story, how it is told, and why</b><i><b>. </b></i></p>