Meet Syd Redding, a gruff, ambitious working-class young man and pre-med student. Syd passes the stultifying hours of 1978 in his ethics class fantasizing about the destruction of the Kesslers, his boss's well-to-do Ohio family, a threesome 'moneyed and beautiful and installed high in the city's society.' As he steps onto the doorstep of their grand mansion in the estate section of their city, Syd has no detailed plan in mind, only vague, delicious dreams of vengeance. But when he meets the boss's daughter, he soon finds himself caught in the sexual machinations of this magnetic family. A simple affair leads from obsession through rage to a revenge plot that will transform the lives of everyone involved.