Three Colours Black, the first of the Three Colours trilogy, takes you deep into the underbelly of the Northern Ireland Conflict; a dark place that can draw from a person the most extreme version of themselves in order to survive.
Nina is a girl whose wretched childhood has been brutalised by collateral damage of the Troubles. Orphaned at 2 years-old, when her mother is murdered, she ends up subjected to years of abuse while in care. Whereupon, having killed her tormentor on her release from care, she is consumed by a compulsion to exact her own form of justice for her mother’s vicious murder.
To do so she must track down an uncle called Jimmy, her only living relative, a merciless man whose life has been lived beyond the pale, both in jail and on the outside.
In finding him, Nina is taken on a terrifying journey into the dark side of human nature and its capacity for cold blooded violence. But, in going on this journey, both of them touch on emotions they didn’t know they had, or had buried deep. But Jimmy has his own agenda and Nina, or her safety, is not part of it.
Like its author, Three Colours Black has emerged from the depths of the Northern Ireland Conflict but is not contained by it. It speaks of the darker side to the human condition, where sometimes a glimmer of light can shine.
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