Shock, horror, drama…the cynical cliches of journalism suddenly turn back on those who use them when, for the first time in her career, Katrina Darcey fails to arrive at the office to write her copy. The disappearance of the Sunday Registers leading columnist – and bestselling author of sex-and-shopping blockbusters – has news value; in fact, its the big one, the front-page story. As her colleagues become increasingly concerned, she is dying alone in her Cornwall cottage, life seeping away through a vicious head wound. As Fleet Street begins to dig, the driving imperative of news forges an edge of unfeeling cruelty; there is no place for compassion, even for one of their own. Katrina has spent the previous days hiding from her past, remembering the people who shaped her life, the significant others who made her what she was. Which one hated her enough to murder her? In THE HAND OF STRANGE CHILDREN, Robert Richardson successfully entered the dark world of the psychological crime novel; in SIGNIFICANT OTHERS, with its final twist of pain, he shows himself to be a master in the field.