Ric Jerrom

The Judgement of Strangers Ric Jerrom

Andrew Taylor's Roth Trilogy has just been made in to a three-part TV adaptation for ITV. Fallen Angel, starring Emilia Fox and Charles Dance, is broadcast on 11th March. There is also a behind-the-scenes documentary on 14th March on ITV 3.

The structure of the Roth Trilogy is unusual in that it is composed of interlocking stories but each novel is self-contained and may be read independently of the others. The first novel, The Four Last Things, is set in the 1990s. The second, The Judgement Of Strangers, moves back to 1970, and the third, The Office Of The Dead, to 1958.

It is 1970. David Byfield, a widowed parish priest with a dark past, brings home a new wife to Roth. Soon the murders and blasphemies begin. But does the responsibility lie in the present or the past? And can Byfield, a prisoner of his own passion, break through to the truth before the final tragedy destroys what he most cherishes?