Even the most derelict of the characters has a surprise of goodness. The three begin to form a sort of makeshift family, something they all need, even as Bobby, Lennie's dog, begins to take a bit too much of an interest in the bee-enticing lavender growing over the graves. At first the girls dismiss Lennie as a lonely old man who wants to meddle in their business, but then as they spend more time with him, his kindness wins them over. Characters unpeel their layers to show us the truths they've been hiding. While each of the girls believe the other killed their father, the truth is more shattering. Secrets abound, and startling reveals tumble one upon the other. Part of the pleasure of the book, too, is that there are more than just two bodies buried. The alternating sections are short and punchy, much like flash cuts, giving the book an urgent momentum. She can't fit in with the other kids because 'their parents are lawyers and accountants and mine are buried in the yard.' Lennie, the gay neighbor next door, has been branded a sex offender because of one lonely night when he made the mistake of soliciting a young boy, but he's really mourning the death of his longtime lover, even as he grapples with a terrible secret of his own. She drinks, smokes and dates Mick, a married man who also happens to be a drug dealer. Marnie's the salty-tongued caretaker who can barely care for herself. If her language is sometimes a little unbelievably fussy for such a little girl (she actually says 'cleanliness is next to godliness'), her desperate yearning for ordinary family life is palpable. Nelly, a spectacled violin prodigy prone to fits, lives on cornflakes and Coke, adores Bette Davis and finds growing up revolting. Separated into seasons, the book is narrated by three distinctly funny, tenderly sympathetic voices. O'Donnell ties her story together like a string of dark jewels. So how can a book with a premise this disturbing also be so deliciously comic? Instead, the plan is to act normally for another year, sidestepping the dangerous minefields of authorities, children's services and nosy neighbors, until Marnie will be legally an adult and able to take care of both of them.

How their parents died is something only the girls know, and their lips are zipped. Set in a hardscrabble housing complex in Glasgow, Scotland, 'The Death of Bees' tracks the relationship of 15-year-old Marnie and her 12-year-old sister Nelly, left on their own, but not exactly mourning their drug-addicted and abusive folks' demise. Neither of them were beloved.' That's the knockout opening in screenwriter Lisa O'Donnell's mesmerizing debut novel about family bonds, loyalty and what we really owe the ones we love. 'Today I buried my parents in the backyard.

The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell