Rebecca West

Eighteen-year-old Laura Rowan overhears a conversation between her father, an English Member of Parliament, and her mother, Tania, the daughter of an exiled Russian royalist. Tania's decision to take Laura to Paris to visit her grandfather, Count Nikilai Diakonov, means that Laura will unwittingly become a witness to the momentous events leading up to the Russian Revolution.

This is a classic study of treachery and an analysis of the impulse to betray. It begins with the post-World War II trials for treason of William Joyce ( Lord Haw Haw) and John Amery.

Sequel to 'The Fountain Overflows' (3637); It is the early 1900’s and Clare Aubrey’s feckless husband has disappeared leaving her in charge of the family. Rose and Mary are at music college, Cordelia is assistant to an art dealer, and younger brother, Richard, is contemplating Oxford. Meanwhile events of the First World War gather pace.

When the Aubrey family move to the London suburbs, it seems like a new beginning, free from the threat of scandal and ruin caused by Mr Aubrey’s genius for instability. However, life is not dull, as the family encounter furious poltergeists, find hidden masterpieces and come to the aid of a murderess.