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Sat 11 Nov 2002Macabre tale of Deep SouthFICTION: Mother's Day in a small town in Mississippi, and everyone in the Cleve household is rushing around organising a big family get-together, worrying about the menu, the flowers and the good linen napkins. But when nine-year-old Robin is found hanging in a black-tupelo tree in the back garden, that's the end of life as the Cleves have always known it. Was the child murdered? Who would do such a thing? Why? Twelve years later, not only has the mystery not been solved, but the tragedy is never discussed. Its repercussions, of course, have spread like a stain across the family. Robin's mother has retreated into a dreamy world of pills and indifference; his father has left to set up house with a mistress at a discreet distance; a battalion of elderly great-aunts battle on, putting a variety of brave faces on the devastation. None of which is enough for Harriet. She was just a baby when her brother died, but now, at 12, raised on a high-energy literary diet of Stevenson, Conan Doyle and the diaries of Scott of the Antarctic, she is full of righteous indignation and determined to find and punish Robin's killer.