Big Snow

Northern Ireland, 1963. In a house with windows flung defiantly wide, a wife dies before her husband can make his confession. Elsewhere, an old woman searches desperately for a wedding dress in her dream of love. And in the very heart of the city, the purity of snow is tainted by the murder of a young woman, leaving one man in race against time - to find the murderer before the snow melts. This is the story of a time muffled and made claustrophobic by unprecedented snow falls. Suddenly shaken free from the normal patterns of their lives by the extremity of the weather, people find their intimate desires thrown into sharp relief and David Park shows this flawed slice of humanity to be somehow glorious. ''Ingenious'' SUNDAY TIMES ''A magnificent writer'' BELFAST TELEGRAPH ''Park writes prose like a poet; and the invisible lines of national borders and tribal territory are etched into a text which rolls thorugh time and space.'' THE TIMES ''Some of the more exhibitionist fictional voices currently clamouring for our attention seem mute in comparison'' INDEPENDENT ''Considerable dexterity, freshness, and insight ... (A) well-crafted, closely observed tale.'' WASHINGTON POST