Publisher's Synopsis
In a village outside Cambridge are grouped the normal complement of people: Hal the doctor; Beth the rector's widow and one of her recalcitrant daughters visiting from London; the country-seeking newcomers George and Adela, a couple soon realised to be at odds with each other, Adela quickly earning the dislike she seems to deserve. The successful playwright Francis and his wife Griselda have settled here, hoping for rural quiet; likewise some university dons, Isidore and Candida the widow of his best friend, who spend much time on pondering ladders to truth or heaven and the obdurate imperfection of humankind: and Edmund their friend, who faces a disaster he perhaps brought upon himself. Then George falls from his ladder, a fatal accident which seems to set off an alarming chain of events, leading to underlying revelations, a series of nuisance telephone calls, and a brutal murder. It is not long before many lives are affected, yet is it possible, that out of such a wretched circumstance, good can come, new joys that past experience shows can be all too fragile? Carnegie Medal winner Pauline Hunter Blair writes with a rare perception of how life deals its cards and the frailty of all that we so often take for granted.
