The winter before he was sixteen amateur magician Pup made a Faustian pact & sold his soul to the devil. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to get in exchange. Pup's older sister Dolly is manically obsessed with her birthmark believing it is responsible for her status as a social outcast. She becomes pathologically transfixed by Pup's dabbling in magic desperate to believe he has occult powers that can cure her disfigurement improve their lives & kill their stepmother. As Dolly's obsession grows a young mentally disturbed Irishman lurks just around the corner inseparable from his sharpened set of knives... In this intense & deeply disturbing novel Ruth Rendell explores a haunted world of obsession delusions & murderous fantasy with dazzling virtuosity.