pp 768 Paperback in acceptable condition; uncreased spine; clean pages; dings at spine bottom; front cover creased; edgewearIt's the summer of 1960 in Atkinson, Vermont. Maria Fermoyle is a strong but vulnerable divorced woman whose loneliness and ambition for her children make her easy prey for dangerous con man Omar Duvall. Marie's children are Alice, seventeeninvolved with a young priest; Norm, sixteenhotheaded and idealistic; and Benny, twelveisolated and misunderstood, and so desperate for his mother's happiness that he hides the deadly truth he knows about Duvall. We also meet Sam Fermoyle, the children's alcoholic father; Sam's brother-in-law, who makes anonymous "love" calls from the bathroom of his failing appliance store; and the Klubock family, whoin contrast to the Fermoyleslive an orderly life in the house next door.