STUDENT Toby falls in love with Salome, the daughter of a Croatian refugee, much to the chagrin of Toby's jealous mother Chloe, who resents the intrusion the relationship brings into her idyllic life in the Catskills.

There are so many strands to the story, though - the Middle East, the impending Gulf War, the Croatian village that Salome was born in and its decimation by Serbian forces, the poacher in the woods - that it is sometimes difficult to keep up, but Martin finally manages to pull it off in this atmospheric novel, despite a somewhat predictable ending.