The Playroom — Frances Hegarty

Architect David Allendale has made a showplace of his elegant home near Hyde Park; his charming wife Katherine is the centerpiece of his creation. Only their daughter Jeanetta, an impulsive four-year-old, disrupts his ideal of perfect harmony. David suspects that she is not his own child.

Katherine, who spent her childhood in foster homes, struggles to keep the peace. But David's moods grow darker, his attempts to control his family ever more bizarre. Finally he locks Jeanetta in the playroom, and pockets the only key. One night, as classical music accents the polite murmurings of dinner guests, faint scratching sounds are heard behind a locked door... and THE PLAYROOM uncoils towards its shocking climax.