Quiver

Intended to be read from beginning to end, Quiver is a book-length poem - a murder mystery - which explores the nature of creativity. Fay Thomas, a poet with writer's block, becomes a murder suspect after she stumbles over the body of her husband's former lover, Mara, as she runs one morning in a local cemetery. Set in a year when Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday coincide with Chinese New Year celebrations for the Year of the Horse, Fay slowly begins to fine her own voice as her poems become interspersed with the narrative. With the help of her friend Erica, trailed by a bewildered policeman and haunted by a ghostly figure, she tracks the killer through the docklands of Liverpool, before the final dramatic showdown in Chinatown.