A Dark-Adapted Eye

One of tile greatest living practitioners of the British mystery, Ruth Rendell, is writing here for the first time under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. With all the rich atmosphere and sophistication of the best of her mysteries, this new novel delves deeply into the heart of a family to uncover the unknown circumstances that led to murder more than thirty years ago.

Faith Severn's aunt, Vera HiIlyard, was hanged for murder—and for three decades the Langley family has conspired to forget the crime, even denying the blood tie. But now, spurred by an inquiring journalist, Faith peers back through time to that dark day in a child's nursery when her aunt took knife in hand and rent the fabric of the family forever.

Picking through shards of memory, Faith pieces together a mosaic of passion and pain. She discovers a history of jealousy and resentment, replete with hatred, manipulation, spoiled lives and ruined dreams. And she begins to fathom the terrible price of obsession. Layer by layer, Faith casts aside time-honored illusions to see her fragile family in a new, stark light.

Vera, driven by her need for love and tormented by her failure. Eden, Vera's beautiful younger sister, who wanted everything worth having, and would take it from Vera. Francis, Vera's son, spurned and bitter with a profound capacity for cruelty. And Chad, the outsider, exploited by them all and drawn into a contest of seduction. Jamie, who bore witness to madness and murder as a child, and Faith, his older cousin, are now drawn together to expose the shocking truths of promiscuity and deceit, of intimacy and malice—finally unearthing the family's long-buried secrets to reveal the chilling vision of A DARK-ADAPTED EYE.