The Cement Garden John Nichol it's Halloween night and the

it's Halloween night and the streets have been full of children trick or treating

the value of suffering

The answer to that is

There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible - and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality

This is evocative historical crime fiction at its best Victoria Dowd

The Cement Garden John Nichol it's Halloween night and theIn the arid summer heat, four children Jack, Julie, Sue and Tom find themselves abruptly orphaned. All the routines of childhood are cast aside as the children adapt to a now parentless world. Alone in the house together, the childrens lives twist into something unrecognisable as the outside begins to bear down on them.