Francesca Peacock

Tea and treachery: Sheep’s Clothing, by Celia Dale, reviewed

Posing as social services employees, two female ex-cons talk their way into the homes of elderly widows in order to drug them and steal their valuables

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issue 11 November 2023
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  • Sheep’s Clothing

    Celia Dale

    Daunt, pp. 312, £9

‘It was a nice way of living,’ huffs Grace, the fiftysomething anti-heroine of Celia Dale’s devilishly dark 1988 novel Sheep’s Clothing, republished by Daunt Books. Recently released from Holloway prison, and using a demure headscarf and twin-set as cover, Grace teams up with Janice, a former fellow inmate, to rob elderly women.

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