A haunting series of stories, in most cases putting it up to the reader to interpret the final outcome — in all cases using the device of the moment in life when emotion or reason reaches the point of tension beyond which something snaps. Several stories, poignant and evocative, deal with children; three situations might well be defined as psychotic — though as one reads, sympathy and understanding are wholly committed; one seems symbolically more the story of a country than of its people. In this collection, as in The Apple Tree, Daphne du Maurier's peerless craftmanship, her eerie sense of the macabre, her gift for sheer story telling come to full fruition.