Four members of the Coverdale family - George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles - died in the space of fifteen minutes on the 14th February, St Valentine"s Day. Eunice Parchman, the housekeeper, shot them down on a Sunday evening while they were watching opera on television. Two weeks later she was arrested for the crime. But the tragedy neither began nor ended there. "It will be an amazing achievement if she ever writes a better book" Daily Express "A classic" The Times "Ruth Rendell is not only the finest crime novelist there is, but one of the finest novelists writing in the English language" Scotsman.