An intimate little novel sketched in careful shades of domestic grey, this is the story of Bronwen Davies, the schoolgirl who knifed the man who tried to rape her in the lane behind her house one war time Christmas and then allowed an innocent man to go to the gallows for the murder. A promising start, certainly, and the war time scenes in which her "respectable" family is forced to take shelter with the neighbourhood brothel keeper and her tribe of "flower" girls are funny and sad. Bronwen's adult life is less convincingly done; the recurring motif of a nose which bleeds when she feels guilty becomes maddenlingly repetitive and the end of the story wobbles out of control, given a sour taste by the maudlin bitterness it tries so hard to portray.
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