The Four Streets

1950s Liverpool. In the tight-knit Irish Catholic community of the Four Streets, two girls are growing up. One is motherless – and hated by the cold woman who is determined to take her dead mother's place. The other is hiding a dreadful secret which she dare not let slip to anyone, lest it rips the heart out of the community. What can the people of the Four Streets do when a betrayal at the very heart of their world comes to light?

In the Four Streets, a dreadful murder has been committed and 14-year-old Kitty Doherty is pregnant with the dead man's child. This secret is so dangerous that it is decided Kitty must go to Ireland to await the baby's birth. But in Liverpool, the police aren't giving up their search for the truth. Somewhere, in this tight-knit Irish Catholic community, someone must know something. The streets are alive with gossip and rumour, and it isn't easy to keep a secret that big.

Christmas morning, 1963. Fifteen-year-old Kitty Doherty gives birth in a cold, unfriendly Irish convent. She knows her beautiful baby boy presents a huge danger to her family's Catholic community back in Liverpool's Four Streets. When her baby is adopted by a wealthy family in Chicago, Kitty considers the problem solved. But soon it's obvious the baby is very sick and only his birth mother can save him. In Liverpool, a charismatic new priest has arrived.

Summer is coming to the four streets - but so is trouble, especially for its redoubtable women, who've struggled through a bitter winter to put food on the table. Peggy Nolan, with seven boys and a husband too lazy to work, has hit rock bottom and is hiding a terrible secret. Maura and Tommy Doherty always looked out for any neighbour in trouble, especially Peggy, but they're far away, running a pub in Ireland and corrupt copper, Frank the Skank, is moving into their old house on the four streets. Can anything bring them home in time?