Gail Sinclair was young, attractive and intelligent. She led a well-ordered and enjoyable life in London. But an innocently granted favour plunges her into a totally different world.

It started with Anita Stratton, a seemingly charming and modest writer. Gail obligingly agreed to drive her from Bordeaux to a remote Basque village. But even before Gail left England on the car-ferry to France, she began to regret her generosity. The writer's breezy, eccentric sister-in-law and Julian Meredith, the latter's man-about-town godson, entered forcibly into her life. There seemed an odd hostility between the two ladies, though on the surface there was no sign of this hidden friction.

And then, in the wilds of Southern France, a stunning revelation caps a series of vaguely sinister events. The friction generates into high-voltage and Gail relises that an old score is about to be paid - with the ultimate price.

Also published as The Stratton Story