It is the turn of this century. Two couples—businessman Bobby Rose and his artist wife Carole Ridingham, his partner Coleman Snow, and Snow's wife, Ruth Farr—have gone on a walking tour in Wales, during which a fatal accident occurs. The question of what happened preoccupies not only an ensuing negligence trial but also the narrator, Bobby and Carole's daughter. Susan lives alone in her parents' house near the coast of Maine, addressing