The Lively Dead
Lydia Timms owns a large house in a once-grand Notting Hill terrace, living in the basement with her family and renting out the rest of the building. She has to cope with a husband recovering from a breakdown, a lively autistic son, dry-rot under the floor-boards, the problems of her tenants, including the government-in-exile of the Baltic state of Livonia on the top two floors, and the recent death of her garrulous and strong-willed cleaner whose body is discovered buried in the back garden.