Eighteen-year-old Philippa Palfrey, adopted as a child, believes herself to be the motherless, illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic father. When she exercises her right to find out the truth, she is shocked to discover her birth mother is very much alive — and about to be released from prison.

Philippa soon enters a new and terrifying world, and comes to realize that she is not the only one interested in her parents’ whereabouts.

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“Immensely readable, bright...P.D. James is capable of handling her themes with astonishing clarity: not to simplify things for us, but to give us the crisp honesty of her novelistic perceptions.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Subtle, rich, allusive, and positively Shakespearean.”
—The New York Times

“A superbly crafted psychological story of a search for identity, revenge and redemption.”
—Toronto Star

"As suspenseful and tautly written as any of her detective stories — the psychological twists and turns will tantalize the reader as cunningly as a well-paced clue."
—The New York Times

"P.D. James steps into territory occupied by Truman Capote, Shelby Foote, Carson McCullers, even Henry James."
—The New Republic

"A superior thriller--tingling with suspense, difficult to put down."
—Newsday

"A transfixing psychological thriller filled with searing suspense, a multi-twist plot and a remorseless eye for our sometimes monstrous needs and drives — It packs a powerful wallop."
—Mademoiselle

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P. D. James is the author of nearly twenty books, most of which have been filmed for television. Before her retirement in 1979, she served in the forensics and criminal justice departments of Great Britain’s Home Office, and she has been a magistrate and a governor of the BBC. The recipient of many prizes and honours, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991.

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