Philip Wardman, an ordinary young man, sports one eccentricity: a neurotic fear of violence and death. Like Ferdinand, he likes to smell the flowers, particularly those in his mother's garden, where stands a statue of the goddess Flora, who over time has come to represent all the female virtues.

Imagine Philip's consternation when, at his sister's wedding, he encounters a living incarnation of the marble Flora: Senta Pelham, an actress happily contemptuous of conventional morality. She comes to him that night.

But Senta has a dark side. Where death frightens Philip, it fascinates her. She proposes a wicked test: to prove his love he needs to kill.

"Vintage Rendell. Shrewd psychological insight, irresistible narrative force...a true member of that small family of great living authors." --Scott Turow