A Terrible Kindness is a debut novel that deals with some of the most sensitive subjects and somehow manages to make it all work. It begins at the time of the Aberfan disaster that took place in 1966, and a newly-qualified embalmer is called upon to help deal with the bodies of the children and bring them to a state where they can be identified by their desperate parents. I was eight when the disaster happened, and I remember the shock of seeing the dreadful pictures on the news after a huge colliery spoil tip collapsed, and swept down the hillside engulfing the primary school and killing 116 local children and 28 adults. Even today, almost 60 years later, this remains a story that must be handled with the utmost care and I think Jo Browning Wroe achieves that. The author grew up in a crematorium, so I suppose she absorbed the dignified etiquette of dealing with the dead and the bereaved, and bodies in her book are offered the kind of care you would expect f...