The Shape of Snakes

A 20-year-old murder, committed during a climate of intolerance, is at the center of this superb psychological novel. When "Mad Annie" Butts, a black woman afflicted with Tourette's syndrome, dies in the street in front of her London home, police call it an accident. But M. Ranelagh, the young teacher who finds her dying neighbor and tells the story, believes otherwise. And Ranelagh's obsessive quest for justice or, as some believe, revenge leads her to pursue the case for years while living abroad, before personally investigating and confronting her former neighbors.