Adolphus Tips (2005) is set in Devon during the Second World War. A twelve-year-old girl called Lily Tregenza keeps a diary — and this diary is discovered by her granddaughter Bonnie decades later. The story explores friendship, loss, racial prejudice and a real historical disaster: Exercise Tiger.
Lily's village of Slapton is evacuated in 1943 so American troops can practise for the D-Day landings. Lily befriends an African-American soldier named Adolphus, who she nicknames 'Doughnut'. She names her cat Adolphus Tips after him. When her cat goes missing in the evacuated village, Adolphus and the other soldiers help her search for it. Then Exercise Tiger happens — a training disaster in Lyme Bay in which nearly a thousand American soldiers were killed by German E-boats on 28 April 1944. The event was kept secret for decades. The novel gives voice to those who died in this forgotten disaster.
The story is told as Lily's diary, discovered by her granddaughter Bonnie — who pieces together what happened.