When Scott and Linda Gardner hire a tutor for their wayward son, he's quickly embraced as part of the family. He's charming and capable; the answer to their prayers. But he's about to become every family's worst nightmare. As each family member takes him into their confidence they feed his sinister plan. Only eleven-year-old Ruby seems able to sense the evil in him - and even she is far from understanding his designs on her family, or that she may be the one in most danger. In his most chilling book yet Peter Abrahams creates a living, breathing portrait of a family's hopes, fears and secrets. And of the menace they welcome into their home that threatens to destroy them.