Beschrijving

‘Strong characters raise questions of how well we know those close to us…gripping’ Financial Times

The dead man was a drunk; a regular on the park benches of Gotland’s city centre. He had been celebrating winning 80,000 Krona at the races. His body is discovered by one of his drinking buddies: he is drenched in blood and someone or something has left a hole the size of a fist in the back of his head.

It’s winter on the island of Gotland. The tourists have returned home. The tree branches are bare, the sky is sleet grey and the days are getting shorter and darker. Winter is a quiet time for Chief Inspector Anders Knutas and Detective Karin Jacobsson; the tourists tend to take the violent crimes with them back to the mainland. To keep their lives simple, they are tempted to assume that the victim died as a result of a drunken brawl over money. But all of the clues point to something far more sinister.

Then 14-year old Fanny Jansson, a volunteer at the local stables, vanishes. At first Knutas and Jacobsson find it hard to believe that the two cases are linked: one is a violent murder, the other, the disappearance of a lonely and isolated child who has probably run away. Painstakingly, they work the clues, assisted by ambitious TV reporter Johan Berg. But what none of them realise is that truth is much closer to home than they’d ever imagine.

Beschrijving

The true story of a son who discovered the unspoken truths of his parents lives after their deaths, including the incredible story of his father’s escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland and his daring journey across Europe in a bid for freedom.

‘A triumph of family story-telling’ Hugo Hamilton, author of The Pages.

A tale of three journeys, the final one a successful pursuit of shadows’ Myles Dungan

Growing up in Waterford, Tom McGrath never noticed the odd gaps in the stories of his parents’ lives before he was born; it was only many years after they died that he uncovered the unspoken truths, which did so much to explain the people they had been.

Here he tells the incredible true story of his father’s conscription into the British Army, his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland, his daring journey across Europe and subsequent recapture – and the devastating news that awaited him in England. Tom’s research also led him to discover that his mother also carried a heartbreaking secret.

In writing this book Tom not only recreated his father’s nail-biting escape but also embarked on a journey of his own to reconnect with previously unknown family members. Unspoken pieces together an extraordinarily rare tale that encompasses memoir, family history, and two parallel stories that were almost lost for ever.