Roots of Evil - Softcover

"'She has a crisp and intelligent style, and a real way with tension' MO HAYDER 'Clever and atmospheric... a compelling read' Good Book Guide 'When you get halfway through, you won't be able to stop... The varied cast of characters are so well-drawn that they get under your skin long before you reach the gripping climax' Big Issue 'Rayne's wealth of intriguing characters and situations has you continually putting two and two together and making five, but when the truth emerges, you wonder why you didn't see it coming. Clues to all the bizarre twists and turns are there, but so well constructed that each time you are taken by surprise' Western Daily Press"

Lucy Trent is used to having the legend of her glamorous grandmother unearthed from time to time - the infamous silent-screen actress Lucretia von Wolff, whose life ended abruptly in a bizarre double murder and suicide at the Ashwood film studios in 1952. Lucy rather enjoys Lucretia's legend - although most of the family would prefer it to be quietly forgotten. But when a body is found in the now-derelict studios, brutalised in a macabre echo of the 50-year-old case, disturbing facts about the past begin to emerge. Facts which point back to the eerie legend of the child known simply as Alraune. The child named after Lucretia's most famous film. The child who may never have existed at all. In the ensuing murder investigation, Lucy is to discover the truth about her family's dark and often poignant history - a history which spans the glittering concert halls of 1920s Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz. And at the heart of it all lies the shocking truth about the mysterious child called Alraune.