Hander paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment.

It's psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware's job to try to unlock the terrible secret buried in Melody's memory.

But as the sinister shadows in the girl's mind begin to take shape, Alex discovers that the mystery touches a shocking incident in his own past.

And behind it lies an unspeakable evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it claims another innocent victim.

The novel was adapted for a 1986 television film, also titled When the Bough Breaks, co-produced by and starring Ted Danson as Alex Delaware and Richard Masur as Milo Sturgis.