Regatta

Knowledge is power. When Anansi Cowper, the lame, angry and neglected child of council care and parental carelessness, finds herself adrift in a Suffolk seaside resort, she has no hesitation in destroying her hosts' complacent comfort with a well-timed revelation about what she saw in the old Martello Tower.

But Anansi is only eleven years old, and the few pillars of her life are crumbling. Faced with her own disaster, compounded by the one she has created for the smug little town of Blythney, she needs courage. So does Sheila, whose husband has strayed too far for easy recovery; his lover Penny, startled by her own husband's robustly Victorian approach to sin; and their various children.

In the background flows the river, which cares for none of them; and an old war hero, who cares rather too much. The answer, for those who can recognise it when they see it, turns out in the end to be perhaps a better one than any of them deserves.