A comfortable family beach house holds a big surprise...

Dina Marie Davis has a "situation" she doesn't know how to resolve—a vindictive professor determined to see that she washes out of her graduate program. Relieved when another faculty member successfully places her at Yale, Dina discovers she's traded one problem for an even more serious one.

Her options are limited. She can flee once again to another school, give up her dreams of life in academia, or accept the help of a reluctant ally—her remote, middle-aged seminar director. Dr. Carl Rinaldi is determined to protect Dina from a man he suspects is not quite sane.

The beach house Carl owns in Westhampton becomes first their refuge and then the center of their shared life. An unexpected event, however, changes the trajectory of Dina's life. In less than a year, she will go from being a comfortably established professor of cultural history to a private investigator specializing in suicide. Ultimately, she will return to her cottage in the Hamptons, a place of powerful memories, both joyful and tragic, to examine her life and love for two intimately connected men.