Early this morning, several hours before my arrest, I was woken by an earth tremor. I mention the incident not to suggest that there was a connection - that somehow the fault lines in my life came crashing together in a form of a couple of policemen - for in Tokyo we have a quake like this every month. I am simply relating the sequence of events as it happened. It has been an unusual day, and I would hate to forget anything....

So begins The Earthquake Bird, a haunting novel set in Japan which reveals a murder in its opening minutes and takes its listeners into the mind of the chief suspect, Lucy Fly - a young, vulnerable English girl living and working in Tokyo as a translator. As Lucy is interrogated by the police, she reveals her past to the listener, and it is a past which is dangerously ambiguous and compromising.

Why did Lucy leave England for the foreign anonymity of Japan 10 years before, and what exactly had prompted her to sever all links with her family back home? She was the last person to see the murdered girl alive, so why was she not more forthcoming about the circumstances of their last meeting? As Lucy's story unfolds, it emerges that secrets, both past and present, obsess her waking life.

2001, CWA New Blood Dagger, Winner

2001, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, Winner

2002, Betty Trask Award, Winner