In England, in 1952 , the notorious femme fatale film star Lucretia von Wolff murdered her lover the composer Conrad Kline and the impresario Leo Dreyer at the Ashwood Film Studios and then killed herself. At the time it was an immense cause celebre; then the scandal died away into and was forgotten by all except members of Lucia’’s family.
But the double murder and suicide was neither the beginning nor the end of the tragedy. Lucy Trent, Lucia’’s granddaughter, is approached by researcher Trixie Smith; Trixie is particularly anxious to establish whether a child, known as Alraune, was present . Lucy believes that Alraune’’s presence was just a publicity stunt dreamed up by journalists. But Trixie says, ‘‘Are you sure about that?’’ Trixie wants to meet Lucy’’s aunt, Deborah Fane, Lucretia’’s elder daughter, and Lucy reluctantly agrees to facilitate the contact.
The story turns on the search for the truth about Alraune. The name comes from the title of one of Lucretia’’s earliest and most sensational films about a child conceived beneath a gallows and born without a soul. But Trixie’’s search is dangerous for those alive today, fearful lest shameful secrets be revealed, and deaths follow including Aunt Deborah’’s and Trixie’’s own. Other people are drawn in: the ‘‘buttoned-up iceberg’’ solicitor, Trixie’’s flatmate Francesca Holland, Michael Sallis director of a charity for homeless children, Liam Devlin another solicitor this time full of Irish charm. And a nameless child fleeing a murderous father to seek refuge with the child’’s grandmother Alice in a remote East Anglian village.
The underlying theme of Roots of Evil is the complexity of individual personalities, how the truth of who and what we are may be masked from others. In particular, the story of how Lucretia was once Alice Wilson, lady’’s maid in a rich Viennese family in the 1920’’s, and metamorphosed into the aristocratic and mysterious countess, film star, and lover of Conrad Kline. Alice/Lucretia’’s life is told as a narrative parallel to that of the modern story; it leads from the glamour and gaiety of pre-war Vienna to the horrors of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Nor is Alice/Lucretia the only character with a divided personality.
Roots of Evil is essentially a Gothic tale of the darkest and grimmest sort, in places downright gruesome. But it is leavened with well-handled romantic elements which serve to lighten the darkness. It does in places require the suspension of disbelief but the narrative is told in such a compelling and dramatic fashion that the reader cannot fail to be carried along.
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Radmila May
Sarah Rayne has also written Tower of Silence and Dark Dividing