The Killjoy

Ian Laidlaw is an equable man. Quiet, cultivated, efficient, head of the political science department at a Scottish university. His uneventful days are measured out with scrupulous care until Alicia Anna Davie laughs in his face one afternoon--and his ordered world crumbles about him.

There is another side to Ian Laidlaw, a side that matches the scarred horror of the left side of his face, mangled in youth by a vicious hound. This side draws Alicia into a bizarre relationship; but as she toys with ugliness and danger, Laidlaw becomes locked into an obsessive passion at once disorienting and hideously destructive. Alicia's crime is the carelessness of youth--Laidlaw's punishment reflects the dislocation of his universe.

Raking the Ashes is Anne Fine's sixth novel for adults. Her first was the critically acclaimed The Killjoy. Taking the Devil's Advice and Telling Liddy have both been adapted for the radio. She is also a distinguished writer for young people, and has won the Carnegie Medal twice, the Whitbread Children's Award twice, the Guardian Children's Literature Award and a Smarties Prize. An adaptation of her novel Goggle-Eyes has been shown by the BBC, and Twentieth-Century Fox filmed her novel Madame Doubtfire as Mrs Doubtfire, starring Robin Williams. Her books have been translated into twenty-six languages. Between 2001 and 2003 she was the second Children's Laureate. Anne Fine has two grown-up daughters and lives in County Durham.