A Perfect Understanding

In 1957, in the south-east suburbs of London, Jean Swinney works as a journalist on the local newspaper. She is unmarried and in her mid-30s, and she looks after her truculent mother. Her days are made of chores and small pleasures, and the parish thinks of her as a spinster.

An assignment changes that. Gretchen Tilbury claims that her daughter Margaret was conceived by virgin birth, and Jean sets out to find the truth. The first medical tests appear to support Gretchen's account, which Jean did not expect.

As the story is researched, Jean is drawn into the Tilbury household. Gretchen becomes a friend, and Margaret, quirky and charming, becomes something close to a child of her own. Then there is Howard, Gretchen's husband, whose dry wit, intelligence and kindness catch Jean off guard. She falls in love with him, and she falls hard.

He is married to her friend, who is also the subject of her newspaper story, and that story is sending dark ripples through all of their lives. Jean cannot give up her first real chance at happiness, though a price waits for it.

This is a quiet, character-driven mystery set in the closed world of 1950s suburbia, with loneliness and desire at its centre.