Product Description

For nine-year-old Sparra there's nowhere left to play. With her parents fighting and vicious Auntie Mo dishing the dirt, it's no fun at home. And her own street's not much better - on the prowl are mortal enemies Uffo and Lippo, mad Harold and his skinny wife, psycho-killer Stabber and finger-wagging old ladies. So Sparra and her bezzie mate Debbie end up playing in a derelict house on Piggy Monk Square. The 'Bommy' becomes their special hideaway - until Sniffer turns up. A policeman with a bad case of snuffles and a big set of handcuffs. He warns them to keep out, but how can they trust him? So when he chases them and breaks his leg Sniffer finds himself at the mercy of two little girls whose efforts to solve the problem he poses pitch them deeper into trouble than they could ever imagine.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1294233 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .66" h x 5.42" w x 7.74" l, .51 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
'A stunningly well-written novel. I didn't want it to end. Tense, joyous, terrifying, comic, tender, magic and tragic - just like childhood itself' Willy Russell

From the Publisher
1970s Toxteth, and nine-year-old Sparra is running out of places to play. It’s no fun at home, what with her Mam and Dad snapping at each other and Auntie Mo dishing the dirt. Along her street prowl mortal enemies Uffo and Lippo, mad Harold and his skinny wife, psycho-killer Stabber and old ladies going ‘tut tut tut’.
So Sparra and her best mate Debbie make a bombed-out house on Piggy Monk Square their own special hideaway. When a policeman with a bad case of snuffles and a big set of handcuffs disturbs their games, he warns them to keep out the Bommy. Two Scouse girls, they know better than to trust a Sniffer-Cop. But suddenly he’s at their mercy and they’re pitched into trouble deeper than they could ever imagine.

‘Piggy Monk Square is unbearably tense and utterly believable. The voice of its young heroine is so beguiling and convincing that you feel that you've met her. And then the story forces you to share her terrible secret. Like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle: illuminating and satisfying’ (Frank Cottrell Boyce)

About the Author
GRACE JOLLIFFE was born and brought up in Toxteth. She left Liverpool in the 1970s for the mountains and beaches of Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland. A writer and film-maker, Grace's short stories have been widely published and she is a regular writer for RTE radio in Ireland. Her award-winning short films have been screened at festivals in the UK and USA, Ireland, Spain, Bangladesh, Italy and Canada. Most recently, her film NOWHERE LAND was a finalist in the 2001 TAPS UK Writers of the Year competition.