About this book
We’ve waited a long time for this new novel from Ann Oakley and it is timely, set in the perplexing present of the constraints of the Covid pandemic. Locked down, Alice Henry needs a purpose in her final years – an ongoing muddle of medical, domestic and romantic interruptions. Then she stumbles on the unsolved case of social researcher, Maud Davies, found decapitated on a London railway line. The blackly funny narrative weaves together the stories of the two women as Alice becomes obsessed with Maud’s fate and determines to solve the mystery of her untimely death.
About the author
In a distinguished career lasting nearly sixty years Ann Oakley has produced many trail-blazing publications that span the fiction – non-fiction divide. Her first published novel, The Men’s Room, was serialised by the BBC in 1991. Her next six novels reflect her interest in women’s lives, the family, pregnancy and birth, and university life. The Strange Lockdown Life of Alice Henry is her first novel after a break of more than twenty years. Ann’s non-fiction writings include pioneering books about sex and gender, housework, women’s studies, reproductive health, social policy and research methods. Ann divides her time between London and a rural retreat in the Midlands, and between writing, research, swimming, gardening and an active role in the lives of her three children and five grandchildren.
