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Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds something that makes his heart stop. Curled up deep in the bog is the body of the child. And it looks as if she?s been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the troubled world around him (it is 1980s Ireland), a little voice come to him in his dreams and the mystery of the bog child unfurls.

Siobhan Dowd passed away in August 2007 after a long fight with breast cancer. Born in London to Irish parents, Siobhan gained a degree in Classics at Oxford University.

While based in New York, she was Programme Director of the Freedom to Write committee, which included founding and leading the Rushdie Defence Committee USA and co-ordinating Salman Rushdie?s visit with President Clinton in 1993.

On her return to the UK, Siobhan co-founded for English writers? organisation PEN, the Readers & Writers Programme, which takes authors into schools that are often in more deprived areas, as well as prisons, young offender?s institutions and community projects. During 2004, Siobhan was Deputy Commissioner for Children?s Rights in Oxfordshire, working with local government to ensure that statutory services affecting children?s lives conform to UN legislation.

She was nominated for the 2007 CILIP Carnegie Medal for her outstanding debut novel, A Swift Pure Cry. Her second novel, The London Eye Mystery, was published in 2007. A final work, Solace of the Road is to be published in 2009.

Before she passed away, Siobhan established The Siobhan Dowd Trust. The aim of the trust will is to help disadvantaged children improve their skills and experience the joy of reading. It will offer financial support to: public libraries; state school libraries; children in care; asylum seekers; young offenders and children with special needs.