Bird '"I knew you'd come Bird." Marcie smiled again and patted the old man's hand. It was the third time he had said those words in the half-hour she had been sitting beside him'.
Jack Witney is dying and his beloved grand-daughter Marcie, his `Bird' who he raised and who once idolised him, has come to his bedside to forgive him the past. From Jack's ramblings as he slips in and out of consciousness, it becomes clear that he cannot achieve the peace in death that he craves - worse than what caused him to alienate Marcie, some terrible vision is hounding him to his grave. A woman, he insists, is constantly there standing over him. A woman with a noose around her neck.
Despite bitter opposition from her grandmother, Marcie seeks to uncover the secrets of her Grandfather's, and consequently her, past lowly the story of Jack's life unravels itself and Marcie becomes terrifyingly sucked in as she wakes from a nightmare one night to find deeply bitten rope marks around her throat.....
Bird is set in and around the Lincolnshire Wolds, giving a remarkable sense of place that reflects the gloriously spooky and atmospheric tone of the book. 'Jane Adams' first two novels of psychological suspense promised a major talent in the making. With Bird, she amply fulfils that promise with assurance and style. Convincing, unnerving and profoundly disturbing.' Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News
'I am a great fan of good commercial fiction, and it rarely comes better that Jane Adams's Bird. It is a haunting crime novel and psychodrama pulling all the right
strings in all the right places' The Bookseller
Paperback - Pan (1997)
Cast the First Stone Portland Close seems like a quiet, pleasantly uneventful place - until Eric Pearson and his family move in and their house starts to regularly come under attack by groups of angry, stone throwing locals. Pearson claims he is being persecuted because he has the journal of the late Simon Blake JP; a journal that exposes a sinister child pornographic ring that looks set to topple some extremely powerful people. Then the allegations begin that he himself is a child abuser.
When DI Mike Croft is called in to look into the case, it seems at first that Pearson's claims of persecution are simply the work of a bitter, obsessed man. But then poachers in nearby woodlands find the body of a young boy who has undergone a horrific assault. 'A quiet, touching work of great impact...Adams's debut last year, The Greenway hinted at a promising crime-writing talent; Cast the First Stone amply confirms that view.' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Gripping, scary, a wonderful read. She could rise to the top of the genre…' Yorkshire Evening Post
'Ordinary it certainly is not.. Jane Adams will keep you on the edge of your seat from the first few pages until the chilling climax.' Stirling Observer
'Adams's story is described with a low key discretion and deliberate lack of sensationalism that make it all the more haunting… the grippingly edgy quality of this policier… is tautened almost unbearably’ Sunday Times
The Greenway Shortlisted for both the CWA John Creasey award and the Author's Club Best First Novel Award.
Cassie Maltham's life changed for ever one scorching August day in 1975. The day she and her twelve-year-old cousin Suzie took a short cut through The Greenway, an ancient enclosed pathway steeped in Norfolk legend. For somewhere along this path Suzie simply vanished ...
Twenty years on Cassie is still tormented by nightmares, parts of her memory completely erased. Accompanied by her husband Fergus and friends Anna and Simon, she returns to Norfolk, determined to confront her fears and solve a mystery that won't let her rest.
Then another young girl goes missing at the entrance to The Greenway, and Cassie is pushed once more into the darkest recesses of her mind.
John Tynan, the retired detective once in charge of Suzie's case, also has to face some personal demons, for the unsolved disappearance has haunted him all these years. Without hesitation he offers his help to Detective Inspector Mike Croft who is leading the increasingly frantic search for the missing child.
Their only link is Cassie. But can they trust her? She may be their chief witness, but she is their only possible suspect too… 'Few Debut novels achieve this level of suspense. Written stylishly and with insight The Greenway lingered in my mind for days. It takes the psychological suspense novel into new realms of mystery.' Val McDermid
'A Haunting debut.' Minette Walters
Bird
Bird