More than a century after someone murders two people on a small island off the coast of New Hampshire, a photographer comes to shoot a photo essay about the famous crime. As she investigates the bleak, isolated lives of the victims, she comes to identify with their spiritual loneliness. For her own marriage is falling apart, crumbling into nights of heavy drinking and terrible silences. Incited by the chaotic forces that blasted the island years ago, this modern woman is drawn inexorably toward the violence of the past, toward choices that will destroy all she has ever valued. With exquisitely stylish prose and arresting psychological insight, Anita Shreve captures one woman`s journey into the farthest extremes of emotion