Marble Heart

A stunning piece of psychological suspense from the author of Araby.

Nina is a sophisticated professional, crisp and clever but stricken by illness; Joan, her care worker, is a simpler soul – thoughtful, generous, and thrilled that, at last, she is to be married. Nina has specifically asked for Joan to tend her, but the latter does not know why. She never suspects that the little that she has had in life Nina is about to destroy.

"Mulrooney has taken her subject not the indigenous people of Belfast who have grown up with the troubles, but outsiders who have gatecrashed it. There is the absurd spectacle of Nina, a middle-class girl from Maidstone, and the 'comrades' plotting the revolution over wine and French cheeses in a huge, inherited house. All of this is wickedly, sharply amusing. But when they really join the party with an act of meaningless terror, Mulrooney shows how contagious and destructive that situation was. And as Nina slowly takes the sweet-natured Joan as her final victim, 'Marble Heart' proves itself to be an excellent lesson in the difference between cleverness and wisdom"
THE TIMES

A stunning piece of psychological suspense from the author of Araby.

Two very different women brought together by a secret from the past.

Joan has a tentative grip on the world – she’s too trusting, soft-centred, cheery and straightforward, the sort of woman who still keeps teddy bears on her bed. By nature and by profession, Joan is a carer, employed to look after Nina Rawle, a crisp and sophisticated woman, stricken by a long-term illness. There is a very good reason why Joan has been taken on by Nina (nursing skills aside) and Nina’s tangled past in Northern Ireland, in which a single and fatal act of political passion played a destructive role, has a great deal to do with it. How and why Nina will reveal herself to Joan, whose part in Nina’s past is truly significant, makes for a tense and twisting tale.

This is a quite different novel from Araby. We have here a pure piece of storytelling, a psychological tale with more than a touch of Barbara Vine. The fantastic storytelling skills and exploration of character which made Araby such a gem are in abundance in this new novel.