Roth Series by Andrew Taylor

Angel, the perfect childminder, preys on young children. But everything starts to slip out of control when Angel steals her latest victim, Lucy Appleyard. Having massacred the innocents over the years, she now wants someone to know about it.

It's 1958, and the party's over for Wendy Appleyard: she finds herself penniless, jobless and on the brink of divorce. So she runs to her oldest friend Janet Byfield, who seems to have everything Wendy lacks: a handsome husband, a lovely little daughter, Rosie, and a beautiful home in the Cathedral Close of Rosington. David Byfield is on the verge of promotion, and Janet is the perfect wife for an ambitious young clergyman.But perfection has always been dangerous, and gradually the idyll sours... moreIt's 1958, and the party's over for Wendy Appleyard: she finds herself penniless, jobless and on the brink of divorce. So she runs to her oldest friend Janet Byfield, who seems to have everything Wendy lacks: a handsome husband, a lovely little daughter, Rosie, and a beautiful home in the Cathedral Close of Rosington. David Byfield is on the verge of promotion, and Janet is the perfect wife for an ambitious young clergyman.But perfection has always been dangerous, and gradually the idyll sours. Old sins come to haunt the present and breed new sins in their place. The shadow of death seeps through the Close, and with it comes a double mystery stretching back to turn-of-the-century Rosington, to a doomed poet-priest called Francis YoulgreaveOnly Wendy, the outsider looking in, glimpses the truth. But can she grasp its dark and twisted logic in time to prevent the coming tragedy? less

Like an archaeological dig, The Roth Trilogy strips away the past to reveal the menace lurking in the present: 'Taylor has established a sound reputation for writing tense, clammy novels that perceptively penetrate the human psyche' -- Marcel Berlins, The Times