In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister. It’s a cautionary tale, about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers and go into the Baxter’s Tunnels. When she’s grown, Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven into the Tunnels by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom – and their lives.
A haunting, terrible tale.
Lala has a husband. He’s not a good man. In fact, he killed a man, whose wife had a husband and doesn’t anymore.
Lala has a child, for a week. Then she doesn’t, and her husband blames her and she knows he’ll kill her if she doesn’t leave.
Lala doesn’t leave.
There are no good characters in this novel, least of all the cop who only follows his prejudiced instincts and his horny thoughts – in another world, this could have been a crime novel with a great detective story. It’s not, it’s really not.
Awful and brilliant.