The Bird Yard by
Julia Wallis Martin
pbk out February 99
(NEL)
at £5.99
In a derelict district of Manchester the bulldozers are about to move in on
the strangest of squats - an aviary that consists of a house and a netted
garden where thousands of finches fly free. But when a boy goes missing
only streets away from a previous disappearance, a series of seemingly
unimportant connections brings Detective Superintendent Parker to the bird
yard in search of someone who can answer his questions.
Then a body is found in woodland, dismembered, laid out in ceremonial
fashion. There are signs that it's not the first nor is it intended to be
the last. The discovery plunges Parker into the world of men who prey on
young boys, a world where he needs a guide. The man he wants, however,
doesn't want to help; he has reasons of his own for avoiding Manchester.
The Bird Yard is a nail-biting thriller that builds tension inexorably as
Parker engages in a race against time and a battle of wits to gather enough
scraps of evidence to end the killings and save the next victim. But more
than that, it is a compassionate and clear-eyed examination of the
complicated genesis of paedophilia, and how it is passed from one
generation to the next.
In the end, Julia Wallis Martin has produced a remarkably mature novel
which reminds us that we must love one another, or die.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
The Bird Yard by
Julia Wallis Martin