Dark Mermaids by Anne Lauppe-Dunbar

'I wrote Dark Mermaids as my refugee mother's daughter: a child of the GDR who fled westwards carrying arcane knowledge of a country in which secrets and lies were endemic.'

Dark Mermaids is a shocking story of a political system that doped its youngsters to sporting superhero status, and then left them to fend for themselves.

1990. The Berlin Wall has fallen, Kathe is dead and a young girl arrives on officer Sophia Künstler's doorstep asking for help. Sophia is forced to return to her childhood home in the former German Democratic Republic, where she faces a past filled with secrets. With her job as a police officer hanging in the balance, Sophia begins to investigate a dangerous web of State Plan 14.25 . As she reluctantly delves into the sordid Stasi secrets of those she grew up with, Sophia uncovers a web of horrors about her own abusive past as a child swimming star in the GDR. But her hunt for the truth has not gone unnoticed by those close to her, people who still have too much to hide.

Anne Lauppe-Dunbar was shortlisted for the New Writer of the Year award in the Cross Sports Book Awards 2016 for Dark Mermaids. She was also shortlisted for the Impress Prize for New Writers and Cinnamon First Novel Prize