The Judds, formerly of London N1, now scattered, are about to be thrown together again by the eldest child Juliet's release from prison in New York. The family is devastated by Juliet's conviction for art theft. The nature of this theft and the reasons for it plague all the protagonists. For Charles, the father, it is a challenge to his sense of rightness and proof of the disintegration of society. For his wife Daphne, it is a source of resentment and puzzlement. Brother Charlie and sister Sophie are less worried by the morality of the theft than by the dissolution of the certainties of family. For Juliet herself is bitter and wounded at being the scapegoat for a victimless crime. And she feels guilty for the pain she has caused. A powerful elegy to the idiocies and intimacies of family love, this is the captivating story of an apparently ordinary English family caught up in uncontrollable events, united again, as much by apprehension as celebration on the return of the prodigal daughter.