Love and violence thrive in the glamorous diplomatic worlds of Washington, Rio de Janeiro and the Texas oil fields in this suspenseful novel that opens in Midland, Texas in the summer of 1949. Midland is a booming oil town, thrust up from the West Texas prairie. Virile young men have flocked out from the East after the Second World War with adventure and the desire for a quick fortune in their veins. "Yalies" they're called by the Texans and Peter Spaulding is one of them. Twenty-eight, handsome, attractive to women, yet moody and unhappy much of the time, he has broken away from his socialite family and needs to achieve success on his own. But fate will intervene. How is he to know-on that day, the seventh of July-that tragedy lies ahead. This novel strips off the tissue-thin covering of human nature and reveals the web of relationships and secrets that lie just beneath the surface of people's lives, hidden from others, and often even from themselves. * * * * * Muriel Maddox spent her early childhood in Rio de Janeiro where her father, a career naval officer, was stationed. Upon returning to the United States she attended Potomac School in Washington, DC, and at ten her first poetry was published in "The Washington Post." She has written short stories and screenplays, and is also the author of "Captain from Corfu," "Llantarnam," "Noela & That Man In Rio" and "Myra's Daughters," all from Sunstone Press. She has traveled extensively in Greece and on Greek cruise ships and visited the islands of Corfu, Rhodes and Mykonos.