Frances Fyfield: The Playroom

From the Publisher:
Previously published under her real name, Frances Hegarty, this is Frances Fyfield's tense drama of a family's psychological warfare carried to tragic extremes.

Kathryn and David are the ideal couple: she, petite, pretty; he, dark, debonair and gifted. But beneath the smooth surface, unseen by their envious or admiring friends, splinters are beginning to form. David suspects one of their two children is not his own, for plump and naughty Jeanetta does not conform with the controlled perfection with which he surrounds himself. Kathryn struggles to iron out family confrontations and maintain the calm of their lives together. But slowly things start to slip from her control. Bits of jewellery and items of clothing mysteriously go missing. David's mood swings become more irrational and violent. His drive to dominate and order the world he's created intensifies to the point of locking the playroom door and pocketing the key - a move that signals the final route into the chaos that will disrupt their perfect world.

Frances Fyfield: The Playroom. Time Warner Paperbacks, ISBN: 0751532517 (May, 2003), 368 p., £6.99