From the glittering frantic world of the international jet set, Althea North, now Countess Branzini, has come back to Northwater, the New England family mansion she had abandoned so many years before. Her beauty still undimmed, still possessed of the wild charm that beguiled so many innocents, Althea is haunted by her wasted years of debauchery - of drugs, scandalous affairs, and a meaningless marriage.

Now she wants desperately to salvage what she can of her life - and to find the key to the ugly mystery of her mother's sudden and violent death, a mystery that has followed her and her sister Kitty into tormented womanhood.

Somewhere at Northwater lies that key - a key which she alone can find...must find...or surrender them both to a future bound by tragedy and terror.