Cyrus Coddington, age nineteen, suspects that he may be a genius without a calling. A year-round resident of East Sooke, Vancouver Island, he has a natural resentment for the summer cottagers who descend on its rocky beaches. When two vacationing American couples arrive, they become his obsession. The husbands are engaged in an academic collaboration that looks more like competition; the wives are old friends who have grown apart and developed a strange jealousy. Cyrus spies on the cottagers through their windows, then begins to insinuate himself into their lives. When one of the cottagers goes missing, no one will look at any of the others the same way again.--From publisher description.