When her goddaughter is arrested during an anti-roads protest, Isabel Vernon is startled to discover that the fair-haired child of her memory has become an overweight, shaven-headed environmentalist and that Isabel herself is now regarded as Emily Frost's next of kin.

Emily, released on bail to the Vernon's at their home in the commuter village of Fordswick, makes herself unexpectedly useful about the house and even finds a local job as a nanny to Rowena. But Isabel's unease about Emily's sudden reappearance in her life and her boredom with her own husband prepare the ground for a tangled web of menace, shot through with emotional and sexual tension.

Dissecting the fragile state of ordinary lives with chilling clarity, False Pretences reveals Margaret Yorke at her atmospheric, suspenseful best.