Kathleen Rutten Book order (chronological)

It is 2002 and as tanks roll into the West Bank and the reverberations of 9/11 echo across the globe, tensions are running high on Cairo's streets. Private Investigator Makana, in exile from his native Sudan and increasingly haunted by memories of the wife and daughter he lost, is shaken out of his grief when a routine surveillance job leads him to the horrific murder of a teenage girl. In a country where honour killings are commonplace and the authorities seem all too eager to turn a blind eye, Makana determines to track down the perpetrator. He finds unexpected assistance in the shape of Zahra, a woman who seems to share Makana's hunger for justice. Seeking answers in the dead girl's past he travels to Siwa, an oasis town on the edge of the great Sahara desert, where the law seems disturbingly far away and old grievances simmer just below the surface. As violence follows him through the twisting, sand-blown streets and an old enemy lurks in the shadows, Makana discovers that the truth can be as deadly and as changeable as the desert beneath his feet.

Alex Voorman, een veelbelovende, jonge archeoloog, is getrouwd met Isabel, de vrouw van zijn dromen. Als Isabel plotseling komt te overlijden door een auto-ongeluk, stemt Alex erin toe haar hart te doneren. Janet Corcoran is docent, moeder van twee jonge kinderen én hartpatiënt. Ze staat op de wachtlijst voor een harttransplantatie, maar haar kansen zijn klein. Iedere dag, als ze naar het weerbericht kijkt, hoopt ze heimelijk op slecht weer en een dodelijk ongeval, zodat haar leven gered kan worden. Als Isabel overlijdt, komt de wens van Janet uit. Dit is het begin van een buitengewoon verhaal over twee families die voor altijd met elkaar verstrikt raken door een tragisch ongeluk.

Talking to the Dead is bestselling author Helen Dunmore's fourth novel. There's nothing closer than sisters . . . Unloved by their distant mother, Isabel and Nina cemented their bond in childhood when tragedy struck the family. Many yeas later, with the difficult birth of Isabel's first child, it is Nina who comes to stay and help out her older sister. But Nina has other, important reasons for being under her sister's roof - not least of these is Isabel's husband, Richard. The tragedy that drew two sisters together so many years ago still has the power to wrench them apart . . . 'A writer of quiet deadly power . . . it takes two paragraphs to hook you. Don't resist' Time Out 'Dunmore's capacity for hauntingly psychological storytelling is on brilliant display' Sunday Times 'Flies off the page, startling the reader with its brilliance' Financial Times Helen Dunmore has published eleven novels with Penguin: Zennor in Darkness , which won the McKitterick Prize; Burning Bright; A Spell of Winter, which won the Orange Prize; Talking to the Dead; Your Blue-Eyed Boy; With Your Crooked Heart; The Siege, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002; Mourning Ruby; House of Orphan; Counting the Stars and The Betrayal, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010. She is also a poet, children's novelist and short-story writer.