SummaryIn a New York courtroom, a woman stands accused of a
controversial crime. Genny Haviland, thirty-eight, is said
to have drugged and suffocated legendary painter George
Gabriel. For two decades the tempestuous Gabriel has
challenged audiences with his wild work. And in the end,
the prosecution claims, he alienated the woman he first
seduced, then enslaved—enough to cause his own death at her
hands. Yet in Genny's mind there rests another story, one that
started twenty years before . . . one in which a college
girl on summer break met an older, attractive artist—and
began a forbidden affair she would never forget, a shadowy,
sensual union in which she was more helpless and more
powerful than she would ever imagine. Then the discovery of
a shocking secret blew it all apart: Genny's father was
Jonathan Haviland, the renowned gallery owner who could
make or break Gabriel's career.
Now Genny contends she was only easing her old lover to a
painless death, allowing him to escape the awful illness
that was slowly eroding his sanity and self. But is that
the whole truth? Or was Gabriel indeed killed—but for far
more sordid reasons, from a motive driven by scandal and
the threat of financial ruin? How much would Genny do for
the man she professed to love, or for the father who has
always loomed darkly in the background of her life?
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