A Kind Man

Tommy Carr was a kind man; Eve had been able to tell that after half an hour of knowing him. There had never been a day when he had not shown her some small kindness. The birth of a daughter, Jeannie Eliza, crowns the young couple’s happiness – just as her shockingly early death casts them low. But they do not need to talk about Jeannie because she remains with them, and their love does not change. In some ways it is no wonder that one of them falls ill, for grief takes its toll, and one Christmas even Eve’s sister Miriam is remarking that Tommy looks unwell. But what happens next is entirely unexpected, not least for the kind man. Susan Hill’s novels and short stories have won the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham and John Llewellyn Rhys awards and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her books are set texts for GCSEs and A-levels. A Kind Man belongs to a genre that she has made her own: literary novellas which are short yet punchy, full of menace and feeling, and which include the critically acclaimed The Beacon and bestselling ghost stories The Woman in Black, The Man in the Picture and The Small Hand.