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ulia
lost both her parents in a traffic accident when she |
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was barely three and her sister Norma was barely
three months old. The only other person left in her family, apart from her
sister, is her old grandmother Lillian Osborne, who is over seventy years
old. It was the grandmother who raised the little girls.
Norma is now a model,
and to be successful in her career she has to travel all over the world and
be constantly |
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on the move. It's a really stressful
without any lifestyle,
real sense of belonging anywhere, and as a result she's often in the company
of shady characters who frequent the world of fashion for the wrong
reasons.This makes it all the more difficult for Norma to overcome her
dramatic problem: drugs. The two sisters don't meet very often, but when
they do, it's a very intense experience. Grandmother was born on a farm,
and now, by her own decision, she lives in a comfortable senior citizens'
home in a rural area. She shares |
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Julia's worry about Norma, and her greatest
concern about Julia herself, the older of her two grand-daughters, is that she should marry a nice boy
and settle down. Like all elderly people, grandmother loves to talk about
her memories of the past, especially about the years she spent with her
husband Walter, an archaeologist, who traveled abroad extensively.
Sometimes, while she's daydreaming about other
things, she provides
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Julia
with pearls of wisdom that give the criminologist new insight into her
problems, and sometimes lead to unexpected solutions.The circle of things
and people Julia's very fond of includes Toni,
the Persian cat that lives with her.
Julia often strokes its soft white fur, seeking comfort and relief from her
loneliness. Every day, Emily Jones, a black house-keeper who's now
virtually one of the family, helps her to tidy up her home.
Emily has a stormy past,
the most significant feature being that she was very likely a Black Panther
activist! She's a woman with plenty of common sense and a practical outlook;
she's very protective, almost maternal, towards Julia. However, she
maintains a feeling of bitter resentment against the world "governed by the
white man"! During the course of her complex family life, she's had several
husbands and an indefinite number of children, among whom Luther, a computer
whiz kid and ex hacker.
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HER FRIENDS AND CO-WORKERS |
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First of all, investigator Leo Baxter. And then, Sergeant
Ben Irving and the churlish inspector Alan Webb... |
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