All Simona wanted was a week in the sun ... some long walks on the beach, a dip in the ocean, a cool drink to top it off. But her summer plans turn cold when her new friend, Bud Warren, disappears one morning during his daily row on the bay. Just that morning Bud had confided to Simona that the death of his wife, Polly, a year ago was not suicide, as the police decreed. It was murder.

Now Bud himself has disappeared, and when his body is found floating in the bay Simona fears that it may have been far more than an accidental drowning.

As the East Hampton heat wave intensifies, Simona begins the arduous task of digging into Bud's life. It's no secret he was disenchanted with his high-profile advertising agency and his business partners. He also had a rocky relationship with his daughter, Laurie, and his longtime neighbor, Rebecca. And then there is Steve, a local fisherman who has a grudge to bear after being cheated out of valuable waterfront property.

Dodo, a wacky old-time hermit, knows the details of the past better than anyone, but he speaks only in Lewis Carroll quotes. While the truth seems just beyond Simona's grasp, she grapples with a twisted trail of unsettling questions. Who would have wanted Bud dead? Why is it now suspected that Bud's wife was murdered? And how was Bud's death related to it all?

Teamed with her burly Russian partner-in-crime, Dmitri, Simona learns that the lives of Bud and Polly were not exactly what they seemed, and that there is more to summers in the high-society, picturesque Hamptons than dark tans and beachfront cocktail parties.