Whatever You Love centres on the unravelling of Laura, a divorced mother-of-two who finds it increasingly difficult to pick up the threads of her life after her nine-year-old daughter, Betty, is killed in a hit-and-run. As normality returns for those around her, Laura’s pain crystallises into a need for action, revenge and resolution – a desire that will bring her face to face with the immigrant man who killed her child.

For the first two-thirds of the book, Doughty deftly weaves a compelling narrative out of an essentially static scenario: Laura’s isolation and bewilderment as she obsessively rehearses the events that have led to her daughter’s death. Insights into the formation of character are combined with satisfying details and