"The telephone rings. Barbara Pomeroy answers, and the threat comes quick. In the matter of a moment both her professional integrity as an arbitration judge and the well-being of her young son, Toby, have been anonymously imperiled.".

"A threat of another sort awaits Barbara at her home in the Cornish coastal town of St. Ives. There, her retired husband, Colin, and Toby have befriended a holiday lodger who goes by the fanciful name of Clarissa Trelawny. During Barbara's frequent absences Clarissa, acting as a kind of surrogate mother, has been showering Toby with lavish affection and presents. Nor has she been illiberal in her attention to Colin.".

"Adroitly interweaving the narrative strands of Barbara's increasingly disturbing trials both in her career and at home into the fabric of suspense, Jessica Mann's fifteenth novel explores its heroine's growing apprehensions over the demands of her job and very mixed emotions regarding the intrusion of Clarissa Trelawny into her family's life. Then Clarissa's body is found beaten brutally to death, and soon even Barbara is doubting the certainty of her own innocence."--BOOK JACKET.