IN the small Hampshire village of Sowerbridge, an elderly woman and her live-in nurse have been brutally murdered.

Irish labourer Patrick O'Riordan is arrested for the killings. His family of immigrant Irish tinkers become hate figures as the village's wealthy residents form a united front against them.

The O'Riordans' friend and neighbour Siobhan Lavenham is the only one to stand by the family - putting her own position within the privileged community at risk. But is all as it seems?

First published in a Dutch translation six years ago, Minette Walters' sinister little novella about bigotry, snobbery, fecklessness and evil is now out for the first time in its original language, English.

It may only run to just over 100 pages, but it's a dark little story that, under cover of being an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery, dissects the heart of darkness in English rural life. Strange and unsettling.

Updated: 08:37 Wednesday, June 23, 2004