It's summer, Jim is sixteen, and off to the Victorian coast with his parents for an easy time at the beach. But things start to happen. Who is the strange figure he glimpses on the dunes? What is the link between Rachel, a survivor of Hitler's holocaust, and the sinister events Jim witnesses? And how can Gillian, with whom he falls completely in love, help him make sense of the drama around them? The tension builds in this remarkable exploration of adolescent sexuality in a world which is much more mysterious, dangerous, and apocalyptic than anyone guesses ...