Billy, come home - Mary Rose Callaghan

A 30-year-old woman travels from Dublin to London to identify a body that has been fished out of the Thames - it is believed to be that of her brother Billy. The narrative flashes back to the brutal murder of a young traveller - Billy, the last person to see her alive, is accused of the crime. Suffering from schizophrenia, he becomes an object of hatred and suspicion from neighbours only too ready to believe the worst. A moving novel about society's lack of understanding of the mentally ill, with a plot working from this flashback to the eventual solution of Billy's disappearance.