Fiction

Attrition. Novel.

Ireland, 1928.

A young housemaid, Kitty Coyne, opportunistically kills the woman she works for in a foolhardy attempt to better her own circumstances.

When the body is found at the bottom of a well it is labelled a tragic accident, however trauma to the skull indicates otherwise. After a brief investigation Kitty is put on trial but her juvenile status saves her from the gallows. Instead she is sentenced to life in Mountjoy Prison. While incarcerated she is taken in by the Sisters of Charity to atone for her past and then vanishes from the official prison system.

Kitty soon realises that her only way out of the workhouse is to claim redemption. There she gradually wins favour with a kindly nun and convinces her that she wishes to take a religious vow. Kitty eventually becomes Sr. Vincent but always longs for a life of freedom beyond the convent walls. The outbreak of the second World War brings her an unexpected opportunity.

England, 1941.

As part of Operation Pied Piper some Irish nuns are sent to care for children in England, who are fleeing the Blitz. Sr. Vincent begins to suspect that her one of her fellow nuns, Sr. Assumpta, is sending reports about her back to the convent in Dublin. She realises that she is still in the clutches of the convent and can never truly escape her past while she remains there. The children’s home suffers a direct hit by the blitzkrieg but Sr. Vincent uses this in her favour. Sr. Assumpta is seriously injured and left for dead by Sr. Vincent, who escapes in the chaos. Presumed dead, Sr. Vincent leaves her veil behind and Kitty Coyne uses the disaster as a chance to seek out her ever elusive freedom. She arrives in a new city, with a new name, and tries to start her life again.

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Bitten By A Dog On Tuesday. Novel.

John Divine is an animal rescue worker who turns vigilante and sets about hunting down those who have intentionally caused pain to helpless animals. Unwittingly, one of the abusers he accosts is the teenage son of a work colleague, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As John gets deeper and deeper into his vicious acts of retribution he can no longer reconcile his beliefs with his actions and he begins to unravel. John’s past begins to come to the fore through dreams and memories, which sheds new light on the deeper psychical mechanisms at play that have manifested in his murderous behaviour. Every action in life has a knock on effect in the greater scheme of things and one childhood incident set a trajectory for John from which he cannot escape.