Marina Willett has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft, in particular with events in the summer of 1934, when the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. Barlow had collaborated with Lovecraft on the story "The Night Ocean." Were they friends-- or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears. The police say it's suicide; Marina is a psychiatrist, and she doesn't believe them. She follows Charlie's trail in an attempt to learn the truth.