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A group of Californian students frequent a remote old house to experiment with LSD. One of them, Michael Quinn, is both highly intelligent and truly evil. The search for pleasure turns to nightmare when a child is killed. Quinn is responsible for this and other crimes, but implicates the others who include the gentle Paul Dunsany and the pragmatic Hal Jamieson. As the police net begins to close, it is Jamieson who leads the search for an escape.Twenty years later, just as Quinn is unexpectedly released from jail, a mysterious young Englishwoman named Joni Lascelles begins to ask question that will unravel the past. She seeks out Dunsany. Does he want to get involved again in this dangerous business? In the end, he has no choice. Because as the trail leads back into the closed world of software mogul Hal Jamieson, it becomes apparent that the horror of the past is poised to engulf the present, leaving no one untouched by its power.
A decades-old tragedy resurfaces when a manipulative criminal is released from prison, forcing his former associates to confront the consequences of a shared, dark past. Michael Quinn, a man of high intellect and sociopathic tendencies, orchestrates a web of deceit that ensnares his friends after a fatal incident during their youth. As the narrative shifts between the initial crime and the present day, the survivors—now successful adults—must navigate the threat posed by Quinn's return. The story utilizes a dual-timeline structure to reveal how past actions dictate the precarious reality of the present, with the protagonist forced into a confrontation that threatens his hard-won stability.
This novel functions as a character-driven thriller that emphasizes the psychological weight of long-buried secrets. The narrative structure effectively builds tension by juxtaposing the reckless experimentation of youth against the calculated, high-stakes environment of the characters' adult lives. Readers often note the author's ability to maintain a sense of dread as the past slowly encroaches upon the present. The focus remains consistently on the moral ambiguity of the survivors, making the eventual confrontation feel both inevitable and unsettling. The work stands as a study in how past choices can permanently alter the trajectory of multiple lives.
Page Count:
420
Publication Date:
1996-01-01
Publisher:
HarperCollins
ISBN-10:
0002253631
ISBN-13:
9780002253635
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