High on a cliff over the Atlantic, the house the locals call "the murder house" stood vacant for twenty-nine years. Then a troubled Viet Nam vet bought and renovated it to rent as a vacation cottage. The first renter is Ona Kelly, a recent divorcee greatly in need of solace. Utterly charmed by the cottage, she buys it precipitously before, gradually, the cottage discloses both a grisly history and perilous present.