Lucy Trent is used to having the legend of her glamorous grandmother unearthed from time to timethe infamous silent-screen actress Lucretia von Wolff, whose life ended abruptly in a bizarre double murder and suicide at the Ashwood film studios in 1952. But when a body is found in the now-derelict studios, brutalized in a macabre echo of the 50-year-old case, disturbing facts about the past begin to emergefacts that point back to the eerie tale of the child known as Alraune. The child named after Lucretias most famous film. The child who may never have existed at all. In the ensuing murder investigation, Lucy is to discover the truth about her familys dark historya history that spans the glittering concert halls of 1920s Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz.