Renata is young, beautiful, and has sex for money and kicks. Few are immune to her intoxicating allure ? even her pet Burmese python, Pepe, seems captive to her charm. Richard is one of her clients, a poetry professor with a wife and two sons, whose erotic fascination with Rennie is threatening his home and job. Meanwhile, Julie, a shy wannabe-novelist, spies on Rennie from her room next door in between bouts of frustrated writing. Both would do anything to save Rennie from her dangerous occupation and become her one true love. Narrated by these three characters, Cruel Poetry is a gripping story of fatal attraction, energized by scenes of high-voltage sex and suspense. Against contrasting backdrops ? Miami?s gaudy vacationland, the haunting atmosphere of the Everglades, and later the onslaught of a hurricane ? Vicki Hendricks captures the Florida behind the postcards. As the lives of Richard and Julie unravel amidst drugs and murder, Hendricks amps the adrenaline jolts and sweeps us to a bittersweet climax.