A psychological thriller of unremitting power - in theme unlike anything Frank Delaney has written before - the spellbinding tale of modern murders that lead back fifty years to forgotten Nazi atrocities.Nicholas Newman, a fashionable English architect, is deep in confused mourning for his murdered lover Madeleine when a series of unexplained attacks almost kills him. In his hospital bed, he is approached by Lukas Waterman, Madeleine\'s secret protector, who hands him a document chronicling a forgotten Nazi project, the Family Institute - and forces him to relive the horrors of a psychological experiment in which Jewish families, including Madeleine\'s, were destroyed from the inside.As Newman is caught up in the increasingly violent events surrounding the few survivors - known as the Amethysts - he begins an odyssey of terror and self-discovery that may ultimately lead to redemption... or death.