Her dark material

aradise Beach, Barbados, in the 1980s. The powdery sand is the palest pink, the water is the regulation limpid blue, the coconut palms sway, but behind the tourist postcard lies another world, a mostly black world of poverty, violence and desperation, of theft, drugs and prostitution. confronts and is unrelenting, but the assurance of the writing, the emotional veracity (no cowardly, compromising sentiment here) and the strength of the characters are compelling.