Hatred in the night...There was little love in the Winthrop clan, not in the mother who ruthlessly dominated it, nor the son who disgraced it, nor the daughter who sullied its name.Certainly it wasn't Cupid who one dark night sent an arrow rippling through a human throat...And now the Winthrops had to desperately seek the murderer in their midst, before that minister of silent death could strike again...

Slowly I turned to face the hall and the doorway. I waited in an agony of suspense. The great house was as silent as an empty grave, with the pulse of time beating eternally against it; tick, tock; tick, tock; tick, tock...Gradually I relaxed and let my hand drop, until—I shrieked and turned-and raised my hand dripping with blood. I stared at it like a maniac, and then at the thing it had touched...