Like most families, they had their secrets... And they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the fifties was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has won many awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America. She has also won the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.

Awarded the CBE, Harriet Walter has received the Olivier Award for her roles in Twelfth Night, Three Sisters and A Question of Geography, and has twice won the Sony Radio Award for Best Actress. Her many TV credits include Law & Order: UK, Little Dorrit, Doctors, Trial & Retribution and Messiah. Among her films are Atonement and Sense and Sensibility, and her autobiography, Other People's Shoes, was published to great critical acclaim.