Allan, Nina

  • A granite silence

    £20.00

    A journey through time to a particular house, in a particular street, Urquhart Road, Aberdeen in 1934, where eight-year-old Helen Priestly lives with her mother and father. Among this long, grey corridor of four-storey tenements, a daunting expanse of granite, working families are squashed together like pickled herrings in their narrow flats. Here are Helen’s neighbours: the Topps, the Josses, the Mitchells, the Gordons, the Donalds, the Coulls and the Hunts. Returning home from school for her midday meal, Helen is sent by her mother Agnes to buy a loaf from the bakery at the end of the street. Agnes never sees her daughter alive again. Nina Allan explores the aftermath of Helen’s disappearance, turning a probing eye to the close-knit neighbourhood and with subtlety and sympathy, explores the intricate layers of truth and falsehood that can coexist in one moment of history.

  • Conquest

    £10.99

    Rachel’s boyfriend Frank is different from other people. His strangeness is part of what she loves about him: his innocence, his intelligence, his passionate immersion in the music of JS Bach. As a coder, Frank sees patterns in everything, but as his theories slide further towards the irrational, Rachel becomes increasingly concerned for his wellbeing. There are people Frank knows online, people who share his view of the world and who insist he has a unique role to play. In spite of Rachel’s fears for his safety, Frank is determined to meet them face to face. When Frank disappears, Rachel is forced to seek help in the form of Robin, a private detective who left the police force for reasons she will not reveal.

  • The Good Neighbours

    £16.99

    Cath is a photographer hoping to go freelance, working in a record shop to pay the rent and eking out her time with her manager Steve. Starting work on her new project – photographing murder houses – she returns to the island where she grew up for the first time since she left for Glasgow when she was 18. The Isle of Bute is embedded in her identity, the draughty house that overlooked the bay, the feeling of being nowhere, the memory of her childhood friend Shirley Craigie and the devastating familicide of her family by the father, John Craigie. Arriving at the Craigie house, Cath finds that it’s occupied by financial analyst Alice Rahman. Her bid to escape the city lifestyle, the anxiety she felt in that world, led her to leave London and settle on the island. The strangeness of the situation brings them closer, leading them to reinvestigate the Craigie murder.