Four young friends, en route to the coast for a weekend of surfing and fun are forced to seek help from a strange recluse when their car breaks down. Jack Rattigan is a strange man living in an even stranger house, a decaying relic of a bygone age. Is Rattigan insane? Or are his words and acts and expression of a mind tortured by mortal anguish? What is Rattigans secret? And what is the source of his power to mesmerise?

A Tennessee sheriff and lawyer want a jailed drifter to assassinate a mayoral candidate.