'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune

In the quiet suburb of Santa Monica, eighty-eight-year-old Mabel Foster loses her husband to a stroke. Rather than move Mabel into a retirement home, the neighbours hire Josephine Slaney to take care of her. The immense nurse is a godsend, the cost of her help is a bargain.

Soon it becomes clear, however, that all is not right with Josephine. Mrs Foster, once bright and alert, falls quickly into a torpor and retreats into seclusion at Josephine's command. It is up to detective Dan Valentine to uncover a strange, lethal pattern among Josephine's former patients, and the race is on to stop her before she can strike again.