The Innocent Party

The tower blocks of Council flats rise against the London skyline. On the fourteenth floor of one of them live the Daltons -- cheerful Dennis who is "only human," his sharp wife Vera, and their 12-year-old daughter Linda. For Linda the sun rises and sets with Dad: everyone and everything else -- even the TV -- are just background against which Dad stands, jokey and loving. Linda is a child of today -- thanks to the media she knows the facts of everything, from abortion to industrial action, but the meaning of none of it -- so that when things begin to go wrong in the family she weaves a web of misunderstanding and confusion which leads to a dramatic crisis... Who was the innocent, who was the guilty? In fact all the characters in this remarkable novel are victims of the clinical hurly-burly of today's urban life. They manipulate one another without being aware of what they are doing. In this vivid, extremely readable novel, Miss Dale uses all her skill to tell an intensely human story that reveals the truth behind the facade of human behavior.