Christmas 1975: A group of Californian students frequent a remote old house to experiment with LSD. One of them, Michael Quinn, is both highly intelligent and truly evil. The search for pleasure turns into nightmare when a child is killed. Quinn is responsible for this and other crimes, but implicates the others, who include the gentle Paul Dunsay and the pragmatic Hal Jamieson. As the police net begins to close, it is Jamieson who leads the search for an escape.
Now, twenty years later, just as Quinn is unexpectedly released from jail, a mysterious young Englishwoman named Joni Lascelles begins to sak questions that will unravel the past. She seeks out Dunsay. Does he want to get involved again in this dangerous business? In the end he will have no choice...