Barbara Vine je pseudonymem britské autorky Ruth Rendellové. Pod tímto jménem se věnuje psychologickým detektivkám, které prozkoumávají složité rodinné vztahy a důsledky tajemství a zločinů. Její styl se vyznačuje elegantním jazykem a pronikavým vhledem do lidské psychiky. Vine (Rendellová) mistrně splétá poutavé zápletky a postavy, které odrážejí společenské změny posledních desetiletí, včetně problematiky domácího násilí a proměny postavení žen.
In the long hot summer of 1976, a group of young people are camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there, what they are doing or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and a child are discovered in the Hall's animal cemetery.
When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. 'I saved your life,' he told the homeless youngster, 'so your life belongs to me now'. Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous.
Kerstin Kvist enters crumbling Lydstep Old Hall to live with the Cosways, and to act as nurse to John: a grown man fed drugs by his family to control his lunatic episodes. Kerstin is determined to help John, however there are others in the family who are equally as determined that John remain isolated.
'In a masterly and hypnotic synthesis of past, present and terrifying future, Vine casts a stone into her dark pond and lets the ripples spread . . . she has created a work that is both compelling and disturbing'. Sunday Times. 'This is the third psychological thriller by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine and when I say it surpasses the first two that's really saying something . . . Vine has not only produced a quietly smouldering suspense novel but also presents an accurately atmospheric portrayal of London in the heady 60's. Literally unputdownable'. Time Out.