Sisters of Mercy

About the Book

‘A complex, unpredictable novel, in the best kind of way . . . One to make you think’ Sunday Age

Snow Delaney was born a generation and a world away from her sister, Agnes.

Until recently, neither even knew of the other’s existence. They came together only after the reading of their father’s will – when Snow discovered, to her horror, that she was not the sole beneficiary of his large estate.

Now Snow is in prison and Agnes is missing, having disappeared in the eerie red dust that blanketed Sydney on 23 September 2009.

With no other family left, Snow turns to crime journalist Jack Fawcett, protesting her innocence in a series of defiant letters from prison.

Has she been unfairly judged?

Or will Jack’s own research reveal a story even more shocking than the one Snow wants to tell?

‘This clever, well-written book flows smoothly and keeps its secrets well hidden . . . an interesting read’ Sunday Canberra Times

‘Mystery and social commentary are intertwined here in a tightly held, thought-provoking work’ Daily Telegraph

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Reading Group Questions

Extract from No Place Like Home

Chapter One

Also by the Author: Ghost Child

I Came to Say Goodbye

Matilda is Missing

About the Author

Praise for Sisters of Mercy

Copyright Notice

Loved the book?

Sisters of Mercy

CAROLINE OVERINGTON

For Omi and Opi

Chapter One

I’ll be honest and say I got a bit of a shock when I started getting letters from Snow Delaney.

The first of them arrived in April 2011, by which time she was already in prison.

Apparently Snow decided to write to me after her lawyer – or, more accurately, her old lawyer, the one she’s now sacked – gave her copies of some of the articles I’d written about her case.

They must have got up her nose, those articles, because Snow accused me in that first letter of getting ‘key facts’ wrong and of being biased against her.

I wrote back, asking her to tell me where I’d gone wrong, and then Snow replied, and so on and so forth for more than a year.

Some people might be wondering what exactly Snow hoped to gain by writing to me, but I reckon it was pretty obvious: I’m a reporter, and she wanted to convince people that she’s innocent of everything she’s ever been accused of doing.

As to what I was doing making Snow my penfriend, well, I reckon that’s obvious too.

I was trying to coax some kind of confession from her, so I could put the minds of some good people to rest.