Set in a society that has reverted to the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. Offred, the handmaid whose job is surrogate mother to the sterile marriage of an elderly leader, longs to escape.

New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson delivers a gripping novel of jealousy, betrayal, envy, ambition, greed, lust, revenge-all the colors of darkness that lead inevitably to murder. In a world of terror and uncertainty, what does one small death matter? The body hanging from a tree in a peaceful wood appears to Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot to be a suicide. But further investigation into the sad demise...

Rachel, the mother of the aging professor Thomas Vanderlinden, shared her life with two men. Both went by the name of Rowland Vanderlinden. The first husband went abroad and never returned. The second, whom Rachel also unquestioningly accepted as her husband, was a mystery. In an attempt to understand his mother's adventurous decisions regarding love and marriage, Thomas sets out on a journey to the far reaches of the Pacific to find the first Rowland,...