Hello Bunny Alice by
Laura Wilson
hbk out April 03
Published by Orion
at £9.99
Former bunny girl, Alice, has been living in obscurity since the suicide of her fiancé,
comic Lenny Maxted, six years earlier. Alice receives a newspaper cutting in the
post: the drought of 1976 has reduced water levels and a car has been found in a lake
in Wiltshire containing a corpse dressed in a bunny girl costume. Alice remembers
the lake and suspects she knows the identity of the girl but who has sent her the
cutting - and why? Her reclusive rural existence is interrupted by the arrival of Jack
Flowers, Lenny's former comedy partner. Jack is drinking heavily and acting oddly
and Alice's pleasure at seeing him soon turns to unease and then fear.
Laura Wilson excels at capturing the flavour of recent history and in creating
characters who are completely believable. Here we get an evocation of the world of
English showbiz in the late sixties and seventies. Wilson writes in the first person, in
an intimate and very natural style. The menace in Hello Bunny Alice is powerfully
managed and the terror of being trapped with someone by turns deranged and
dangerous is convincingly and vividly recounted. The mysteries mount up: not only
do we want to know the truth behind the body in the lake but also what drove Lenny
to suicide and how will Alice survive? It adds up to a breathtaking read – from a
distinctive writer.
Manchester Evening News 24.5.03
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
Hello Bunny Alice by
Laura Wilson
