Incendiary

A distraught woman writes a letter to Osama bin Laden after her four-year-old son and husband are killed in a suicide bomb attack at a soccer match in London. In it she tries to convince Osama to abandon his terror campaign by revealing to him the desperate sadness and broken heart of a working-class life blown apart, even as she tries to find a way to live after the world she knew has been shattered beyond recognition.

Chris Cleave has looked unblinkingly at today's most terrifying possibilities and accomplished the extraordinary: he has created an utterly convincing character who reports back from this hell with vivid perception, startling humour, and a devastating honesty.