Foul Deeds Will Rise by Jean Rafferty
The Blurb
A novel that dares to look unflinchingly at a subject the media have turned away from. Alma Black is a campaigning journalist who travels to Orkney to interview Hugh Watts, a troubled survivor of childhood Satanist abuse. Through listening to the terrible details of his story, she is forced to confront the demons in her own past. As the summer solstice approaches, Alma is drawn into events she can't control. Not all that happens on Midsummer Night is a delicious Dream... Jean Rafferty is an award-winning journalist. Her first novel, Myra, Beyond Saddleworth, was short-listed for the inaugural Gordon Burn prize. 'Foul Deeds Will Rise Is as dark and menacing as Hamlet. It is horrifying until it becomes plausible.' ~ Edmund White, author of The Farewell Symphony and recipient of the PEN/Saul Bellow Award.​
About Jean Rafferty
Jean Rafferty is the author of The Four Marys, published by Saraband Books. The book is a collection of four novellas dealing with issues of motherhood and identity through the medium of Scottish myth and fairytale. The books are interlinked in theme and imagery, yet each one stands alone. The individual novellas have now been released as Kindle singles. Rafferty's first novel was Myra, Beyond Saddleworth, a what if? about Myra Hindley, published by Wild Wolf Publishing. The book was shortlisted for the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize. It takes the premise that Myra Hindley did not die when the authorities said but was given a secret life and identity. Read about the Gordon Burn ceremony on her website blog: www.jeanrafferty.com Rafferty's interest in dark topics arises partly from her experience as a journalist, when she wrote about subjects such as murder, suicide, Satanic ritual abuse and torture. She was twice shortlisted for the UK Press Awards for her feature writing, won a Travelex Travel Writing award and a Norwich Union award for medical journalism, and was awarded a Joseph Rowntree Foundation journalist's fellowship for her work on prostitution.
My Review
This novel tackles head-on the unthinkable world of ritual abuse. Inspired by the Orkney satanic child abuse allegations of the '90s, author Jean Rafferty, after years of extensive research put together this compelling story of a journalist Alma Black, who herself is a survivor of ritual child abuse, visits the Orkneys to interview another survivor Hugh Watts. The story reflects the sheer depravity of this highly organised form of abuse, which is something that none of us would like to hear, and the inclination is that it is more comfortable to look the other way with the consoling belief that it couldn't happen in today's civilised society. This has been a disturbing but compelling read, and I strongly recommend that it should be widely read in order to make your own mind up whether you need to raise your own awareness of the dangers that lurk underground wherever you happen to live, even if it is in a desirable setting like the Orkney Islands.​
