(Out of Print)
Julie Sumner is no quitter. When her husband is killed, she runs their plague-threatened farm alone. All around battle the same danger and wonder at her refusal to grieve, but Julie’s obsessive allegiance to the land and her animals is the only thing that keeps her going.
Even when everyone else surrenders, she fights on in a barricade of barbed wire. And when it is men, not bugs, that smash her defences, Julie still isn’t beaten. She uncovers the identity of the man who wiped her out, and she knows where to find him. Now her goal is murder, the perfect murder…a necessary killing.
“A gripping portrait of a modern tragedy”
Kate Long, The Times: ‘2006 new star of fiction’
A NECESSARY KILLING by Hilary Lloyd — “I cannot thank Hilary Lloyd enough for writing this book. Not only is it a great read that grips you by the throat from the first paragraph, it’s hugely informative about a subject people outside of the rural community know virtually nothing about – foot and mouth disease. I was one of those townies who sat tutting at the news night after night knowing what was going on couldn’t be right – the cull first, test later mentality – but until I read ‘A necessary killing’ I had no idea how very badly wrong the government got things. Everyone who cares about the countryside should read this, so should every vet. And it should be required reading for all the pen pushers at Defra.” — Cambridgeshire Review