She moved up along the couch, put her hands on my shoulder and forced me back. She looked intently down into my face. A long strand of the dark hair swung below her cheek. 'Suppose it were a year, Kyle. A full year. Just for us. Would that be worth it?' 'Where would we hide for a year?' 'Would it be worth it? Answer me!' I traced the line of her swollen mouth with my fingertips. 'If it were thirty days, it would be worth it. You know that.' When Kyle Cameron meets temptation - in the memorable shape of Emily, the new girl at the bank - his life changes. He thought he would be trapped behind bronze bars, chained to a suburban bungalow, but now he had won out: a strange, lovely woman, a fortune, and the strength to murder to keep what he had won. But, gripped by sexual obsession, he enters a world where he will never feel safe again. He puts himself in the hands and the plans of a woman who craves the contents of a very special suitcase from which even the prospect of death won't free her. And when a brutal fate pulls them into its shadows, they have known the extremes of love and hate - and neither of them is welcome any more. In this powerful novel John D MacDonald explores how our passions can provoke a chain of events to trap us. It is a story that challenges us to recognise the narrow line that draws our illusion of self-control.