Janet Byfield has everything Wendy Appleyard lacks: she's beautiful; she has a handsome husband, a clergyman on the verge of a promotion; and most of all she has an adorable little daughter, Rosie. So when Wendy's life falls apart, it's to her oldest friend, Janet, that she turns.

At first it seems to Wendy as though nothing can touch the Byfields' perfect existence in 1950s Cathedral Close, Rosington, but old sins gradually come back to haunt the present, and new sins are bred in their place. The shadow of death seeps through the Close, and only Wendy, the outsider, is able to glimpse the truth. But can she grasp its dark and twisted logic in time to prevent a tragedy whose roots lie buried deep in the past?

The Office of the Dead is a chilling novel of crime and retribution, and is the third volume of Andrew Taylor's stunning and acclaimed Roth Trilogy.

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'Andrew Taylor digs deep to explore the tangled roots of sex, violence and religion. This is a fine thriller, with clues complex enough to tax a Morse' Reginald Hill Little Lucy Appleyard is snatched from her child minder's on a cold winter afternoon, and the nightmare begins. When Eddie takes her home to beautiful, child-loving Angel, he knows he's done the right thing. But Lucy's not like their other visitors, and unwittingly she strikes through Angel's defences to something both vulnerable and volatile at the core. To the outside world Lucy has disappeared into a black hole with no clues to her whereabouts!until the first grisly discovery in a London graveyard. More such finds are to follow, all at religious sites, and, in a city haunted by religion, what do these offerings signify? All that stands now between Lucy and the final sacrifice are a CID sergeant on the verge of disgrace and a woman cleric -- Lucy's parents -- but how can they hope to halt the evil forces that are gathering around their innocent daughter?...