When the showgirl Ann Arden meets Billy Grenville, heir of a New York high society family fortune, it turns out to be love at first sight. They get married, but Ann has to face her indomitable mother-in -law Alice, the patrician matriarch who strongly disapproves of the union. Ann starts her difficult social ascent, which is suddenly interrupted the night she shoots her husband and kills him, claiming that it has been a terrible accident. But even if Alice Grenville has no doubts that her son was deliberately killed, she nonetheless uses all her influence in order to save the family reputation by ensuring her daughter-in-law's acquittal. From this moment on the Grenvilles and their upper-class friends build up a protective wall around the tragedy and, as a result, the two Mrs Grenvilles find themselves bound together in a solid conspiracy of silence that they will have to pursue for the rest of their lives.
- ISBN10 0345430565
- ISBN13 9780345430564
- Publish Date 1 March 1999 (first published 18 December 1985)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Ballantine Books
- Edition Ballantine Books ed.
- Format Paperback
- Pages 374
- Language English