It’s the late 1950s, and nothing much is happening in Rathmoye. So it doesn’t go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger appears on his bicycle and begins photographing the mourners at Mrs Connulty’s funeral. Florian Kilderry couldn't know that the Connultys were said to own half the town; and, in any case, he had come to Rathmoye only to see the scorched remains of the cinema – untouched since the fire that killed Mrs Connulty’s husband all those years ago. But Miss Connulty, liberated at last by the death of her mother, resolves to keep an eye on Florian Kilderry, and it's she who comes to witness the events that follow. Dillahan, a farmer and a decent man, continues to live with the knowledge that he was accidentally responsible for the deaths of his wife and baby. He has married again: Ellie is the young convent girl who came to work for him when he was widowed. She falls in love with Florian, who is himself hopelessly infatuated with his Italian cousin, Isabella, and who is planning to leave Ireland and begin all over again what he considers to be a failed life. In a characteristically masterly way Trevor evokes the passions and frustrations felt by Ellie and Florian, and by the people of a small Irish town during one long summer.