When Dr. Frederick Nielson, a dentist with a taste for administering pain, turns up dead in his own chair, Seattle Homicide Detective J. P. Beaumont investigates the many suspects in the case and uncovers sordid allegations of cruelty, infidelity, violence, and sexual abuse.
Boyd (Any Human Heart, etc.) is difficult to pigeonhole. The 14 stories in this book include the supernaturally inflected ("A Haunting," "Visions Fugitives"), the Chekhovian bittersweet ("The Woman on the Beach with a Dog"), the PoMo urban spiel ("Beulah Berlin, an A-Z") and the comedy of dogged lechery. The last is represented by "Adult Video," which, in journal form, records the infidelity of one Edward, a cynical graduate student, and "Fascination," in which the same Edward, married to the girlfriend he cheated on, bungles a brief foray as a freelance journalist by making a pass at a young interviewee.
