Prologue
The summer season was officially over at the tiny Idaho lake resort, but the pickings were almost embarrassingly good for an attractive male like Nick Sturgis. Nick had selected the place for its solitude in order to perfect a new act as a night-club entertainer, to polish his piano and vocal routines.
There was Lucy, the unslaked housewife whose husband turned up only on weekends. There was Ivy, the uninhibited divorced schoolteacher intent upon a final fling before returning to her classroom. There was Nona, the prodigal virgin, whose craving for fulfillment was burgeoning to the bursting point beneath her retiring exterior.
And there was the unseen, uncaught rapist who had lurked in the hills for more than a year ...
Out of these elements, and others equally intriguing, Mr. Weldon has woven his most combustible and provocative novel.