Lydia Perceval is happier than she's been in years. Two new boys have come into her life. A nationally known writer of popular biographies, Lydia lives a sterile, lonely existance in a lovely cottage in the West Yorkshire village of Bly. Her biographies of such men as Lord Nelson, Byron and Frederick the Great have brough recognition and affluence, but Lydia's personal life has been bleak since her adored young nephews left town years ago. Gavin and Maurice Hoddle—her sister Thea's sons—had been more at home in Lydia's cottage than in their own. The special relationship began slowly as the boys grew to maturity, and, gradually, Lydia had absorbed them into her sphere, imposing her cultural and class values, and alienating them from their parents. Gavin was the brighter of the two, a clever, strong, courageous lad. Lydia had high expectations for him, but he went to war in the Falklands and died a terrible death. Maurice remains a disappointment. Instead of the distinguished career Lydia had envisioned for him, he labours on a television soap opera. Gavin and Maurice have escaped from Lydia, by death and by distance, but thirteen-year-old Colin Belingham and his fifteen-year-old brother, Ted, are likely replacements. Once again, as with her nephews twenty years ago, Lydia disrupts lives, forging ahead with a single-mindedness that is devois of compassion and self-knowledge. Many people have reason to hate Lydia Perceval. One of them hates enough to kill...