‘Hello Bunny Alice’ by Laura Wilson

Published by Orion,
2003.
ISBN: 978-0-75284-620-5 (HB)

When Alice Jones anonymously receives a newspaper cutting relating the dreadful discovery of a decomposed body in a bunny girl costume at the bottom of a lake on the Ivar Park estate in Wiltshire, she suspects that the body is that of a missing bunny girl who was last seen at a party with Alice’s husband, seven years earlier.

Since Lenny’s suicide Alice has tried to put the past behind her, living quietly on a farm, caring for her animals and shunning her former life. But the discovery of the body brings to her retreat Jack Flowers, Lenny’s former comedy partner, and with Jack comes memories of events that she had tried so hard to forget.

Forced by Jack’s intrusive presence to face her past life with Lenny, Alice begins to piece together her life from when she was a bunny girl and first met Lenny in 1967, and the many isolated incidents that she had hitherto blocked out. As her memories resurface so to do the questions. Why did Lenny hang himself? Did he sell his car, or is it the one at the bottom of the lake? Who sent her the newspaper cutting? Why is Jack here? Jack’s behaviour is erratic, his moods unpredictable, and gradually she becomes afraid, and aware that she is a prisoner, and maybe in great danger.

As with Laura's first book A Little Death, we have a small cast of characters, and the story is told by gracefully taking the reader backwards and forwards between present and past. The building of the suspense is very skilful, and as the story unfolds, so the chilling menace creeps up on you and increases with every new revelation. This is a brilliant piece of writing and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Laura Wilson was brought up in London, where she was born and raised. She has degrees in English literature from Somerville College, Oxford, and UCL, London. She has worked as a teacher and editor of non-fiction. Many of her novels have either a historical setting or a distinct historical connection, and often have split or dual narratives. Her first novel, A Little Death was shortlisted for a CWA Dagger award, and her fifth, The Lover was short listed for both the CWA Gold Dagger and the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger. She lives in Islington, London.

http://www.laura-wilson.co.uk