Ordinary Human Failings

About the book

**THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF 2023**

A dead child on a London estate and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive Irish family: the Greens. . .

'As much of a compulsive read as the first'
THE TIMES

'One masterful novel... Nolan has excelled herself'
TELEGRAPH

It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the 'peasants' - ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and 'bad apples': the Greens.

At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, other-worldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life - and love - got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there's nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.

'Heartbreaking, society-examining stuff'
VOGUE