Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she's been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him - his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what, a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls. "Bog Child" is an astonishing novel exploring the sacrifices made in the name of peace, and the unflinching strength of the human spirit.

About the Author

Siobhan Dowd lived in Oxford with her husband, Geoff, before tragically dying from cancer in August 2007, aged 47. She was both an extraordinary writer and an extraordinary person, and left two unpublished novels, the first being Bog Child and the second being Solace of the Road. Siobhan's first novel, A Swift Pure Cry won the Branford Boase Award and the Eilis Dillon Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Booktrust Teenage Prize. Her second novel, The London Eye Mystery, won the 2007 NASEN & TES Special Educational Needs Children's Book Award.

Prizes

The extraordinary story of one long summer in the life of an 18-year-old boy caught up in the chaos and conflict of Ireland in the 1980s.