f New York City that early summer

had not begun to seem like a foretaste

of hell, none of it would have hap-

pened. I would not have answered the ad

in the Village Voice. And, therefore, later

on I would not have stood on the shore of

a wind-roughened Maine lake, with a

man I had never seen before tongue-lash-

ing me for things 1 had never done. And

still later, I would not have found myself

in that desolate place three Ihousand

miles away..."

So begins the story of Catherine May-

hew, an office temporary and aspiring but

unsucccessful actress. Hired by Eunice

and Brian Andexter, a middle-aged sister

and brother, and by their friend Dale

Carling, Catherine accompanies the trio

to a large, secluded house in Maine. Her

purpose there, the Andexters have told

her, will be to bring happiness into the

last weeks of their very ill aunt Josephine

Andexter. The aged woman has never

ceased to grieve over the disappearance

of her granddaughter Karen, eight years

before. Carefully coached by the Andex-

ters, Catherine is to impersonate the

vanished Karen.