Ian Rankin

I den lille skotske landsbyen Carsden blir ti år gamle Mary Miller dyttet ut i en forurenset elv da hun prøver å redde dukken sin fra to plageånder. Elven, som renner fra de lokale kullminene, er full av kjemikalier, og over natten blir Marys hår sølvgrått. Gutten som dyttet henne dør i en ulykke kort tid etter, og Mary får ord på seg for å være en heks. Flere år senere er Mary alenemor med en sønn på femten - like gammel som hun selv var da han ble født. Da sønnen Sandy blir kjent med de hjemløse søsknene Robbie og Rian, må både Sandy og moren konfrontere en mørk hemmelighet fra Marys fortid.

The flood

The book that began Ian Rankin's phenomenal career.  Mary Miller had always been an outcast. Burnt in a chemical mix as a young girl, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just two days later. From then on she was regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination by her God-fearing community.  Now, years later, she is a single mother, caught up in a faltering affair with a local teacher. Her son, Sandy, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl. The search for happiness isn't easy. Both mother and son must face a dark secret from their past, in the growing knowledge that their small dramas are being played out against a much larger canvas, glimpsed only in symbols and flickering images - of decay and regrowth, of fire and water - of the flood.

The Flood

Mary Miller had always been an outcast. As a young girl she had fallen into the hot burn - a torrent of warm chemical run-off from the local coal mine. Fished out white-haired and half-dead, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just two days later. From then on she was regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination by her God-fearing community. Now, years later she is hardly less alone. She is the mother of a bastard son, Sandy, and caught up in a faltering affair with a local teacher. Sandy, meanwhile, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl. The search for happiness isn't easy. Both mother and son must face a dark secret from their past, in the growing knowledge that their small dramas are being played out against a much larger canvas, glimpsed only in symbols and flickering images - of decay and regrowth, of fire and water - of the flood. The Flood is both a coming-of-age novel and an amazing portrait of a time and place. Dark, atmospheric and powerful, it is a remarkable debut from a remarkable author.