Margaret Forster's twenty-sixth work of fiction is a subtle, psychologically probing of personal history, guilt, and redemption. Julia, a troubled and isolated child with few friends, is tormented by the irreperable damage she believes she has caused her family during a seemingly innocuous outing with her cousin's newborn hild. Haunted by guilt and anxiety, she becomes a child psychologst and, later, a magistrate. Yet as "The Guardian "notes, "It's a gripping read without being a thriller because we are drawn ineluctably into something darker that we sense is always floating just beneath the surface of what Julia chooses to tell us." Executed with razor-sharp control and remarkable confidence, Forster's novel is a powerful case study on the consequences of self-deception and the unforeseen effects it can have on he rest of our lives.