Thomas and Charlotte Pitt's former maid takes a new job as Christmas approaches - but not everyone in the household may survive the holidays in this tension-filled novel from best-selling author Anne Perry.

After working for Charlotte and Thomas Pitt for years, Gracie thought her maid-work was behind her. But when her good friend turns up at her doorstep just before the holidays, frantic because she's lost her job and has no references for a new one since she was unceremoniously fired, Gracie knows she has to find out what happened. Her friend, it seems, was concerned about what was going on in the house, and the husband and wife who lived there got rid of her to stop her talking.

So Gracie takes the job herself. At first, it seems that all is normal in the household between the couple and the elderly granny who mostly keeps to her bedroom upstairs. Gracie slowly realizes, though, that Granny is suffering from neglect - and rather than helping her, the husband and wife have decided she isn't dying fast enough....