Caitlin McLaughlin is just like any other teenage girl: during the week she works as a secretary at the Rucola shirt factory in Stones Corner where she has become secretary to her boss’s dishy nephew James. At the weekend she likes music and trips into the city with her best friend… but this is Derry 1972. A simple trip to the shops can lead to life-changing injuries or death, and staying at home in the Creggan Estate can be just as dangerous when the British troops come house to house.
Robert Sallis is a private with the Royal Fusiliers, recently posted to the city. He’s repelled by the way some of his fellow soldiers behave; wary too of civilian feelings running high against the occupying army. Accidentally separated from his patrol in the Creggan, he is discovered by Caitlin hiding in her family’s garden. He expects the worst but, having seen enough violence too close to home, she does not give him away. Instead she prefers to daydream about her charming boss who has made his feelings for her plain.
A Catholic girl from the Bogside and the Protestant heir to a big local employer… In her youthful innocence, Caitlin believes their love can overcome the twin obstacles of politics and faith. Meanwhile Robert, newly recruited to British undercover forces, is closing in on an IRA cell planning a strike in the heart of Stones Corner…
Debut author Jane Buckley grew up in Derry in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of The Troubles. Stones Corner – Turmoil is her hard-hitting but scrupulously unbiased account of people on both sides of the sectarian divide struggling to live and love against a background of chaos and carnage.