A teenage boy is snatched as he walks up the road, minutes from his own house, and beaten to death with a hammer; two psychiatric patients are stabbed to death in their sheltered accommodation; a young girl is fatally stabbed in her own bedroom by a neighbour she hardly knows; a man is beaten to death in an apparent gangland feud. Death in any circumstances is devastating, but when the cause is murder, grief takes on an extra dimension. Those left behind live under a life sentence, condemned to years of painful memories and deep regrets. Based on personal interviews with victims' families, Catherine Cleary tells the horrific stories of twelve murders and how their families have survived the ordeal.

'Harrowing material though it is, this deserves to be widely read, and is a wholly necessary project if it goes some way towards achieving its aim.' The Irish Independent 'captures the quiet dignity apparent in many families' attempt to adapt to their changed lives' The Irish Times