Little Bee by Chris Cleave is a contemporary story in which we meet Andrew and Sarah, a thirty-something couple of British journalists who are trying to save their shaky marriage for the sake of their 4 year old son by taking a free getaway vacation to a Nigerian beach resort.  Andrew and Sarah stray from the safety of the resort compound, and find themselves suddenly involved in that country’s violence.  They encounter two teenage sisters who, fleeing a blood bath in their village, burst from the brush and onto the beach.  Right behind them are guard dogs and men armed with machetes.  One of the girls is Little Bee. 

Two years later, Little Bee turns up at Andrew and Sarah’s home.  It turns out that she came to England as a stowaway and has spent the last two years in a detention center for undocumented immigrants.  She arrives at a very pivotal moment in Sarah’s life, and Sarah decides to help Little Bee get legal refugee status so she can stay in England.  The path is not simple.

There are a lot of twists and turns to this well crafted and well-written story. The author keenly observes human frailty, the shrewdness of desperate people, and the complex human problems of globalization.