George Foss never thought he'd see her again, but on a late-August night in Boston, there she is, in his local bar, Jack's Tavern. When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past. Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her...In his electrifying debut, Peter Swanson evokes the spirit of Body Heat and Double Indemnity, in a thriller about love, loss and those memories we hold closest to our hearts. '...it was like I had a secret disease, or there was this clock inside of me, ticking like a heart, and at any moment an alarm would go off...'