The Flood (novel)

infobox Book |
name = The Flood
orig title =
translator =


author = Ian Rankin
cover_artist =
country = Scotland
language = English
series =
genre = Fiction
publisher = Orion Press
release_date = 1986
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 251 pp
isbn =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Flood" is the first novel by acclaimed crime writer Ian Rankin.

Plot summary

Mary Miller has always been an outcast. As a child, she fell into the hot burn - a torrent of warm chemical run-off from the local coal mine - and her hair turned white. Initially she was treated with sympathy, but all that changed a few days later, when the young man who pushed her in died in an accident.

Now many years later, Mary is a single mother caught up in a faltering affair. Her son, Sandy, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl - and both mother and son are forced to come to terms with a dark secret from Mary's past.