Ophelia, a professor of Dante, is stricken when she discovers that her husband Andy has been cheating on her with a winsome colleague. What follows is Ophelias figurative descent into hell as she obsessively tracks her subjects, performs surveillance in her beat-up Volvo, and moves into the property next door to Ambers, which has gone into foreclosure. She spies on the lovers, growing more and more estranged from reality. Andys betrayal reawakens the earlier trauma of abandonment by her mother at the age of eight. When Andy and Amber become engaged, Ophelia snaps. The story is a jailhouse confessional, a dark comedy, an oeuvre of womens rage, a suspenseful revenge fantasy, and a moving portrait of one womans psychological breakdown.