Surprisingly, the conceit of looking down from heaven works nicely, since Ms Sebold avoids the precious, making Susie's paradise agreeably ordinary, a place where the dead learn to let go of the living while below the living learn to let go of the dead.

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Yet that secret is only the beginning of a mystery so tightly wound and barbed with hurt and hurtful people that solving it becomes the only way to make the pain go away and the sun shine down on a place some call Paradise.

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Speaking on the programme Terry Smith, chief executive of Tullett Prebon, added that many investors around the world are "living in a fool's paradise", expecting regulatory bodies or governments to bail them out if things go wrong.

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In places like the Philippine island of Boracay, the transformation is well under way, so I head first to Bacuit Bay, to check out a diminishing rarity: a self-proclaimed tropical paradise that contains no go-kart tracks or daiquiri stands or much of anything but wild animals, water and sand.

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