It's summer and nothing much is happening in Rathmoye So it doesn't go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger appears on his bicycle and begins photographing the mourners at Mrs Connulty's funeral Florian Kilderry couldn't know that the Connultys were said to own half the town and, in any case, he had come to Rathmoye only to see the scorched remains of the cinema But Mrs Connulty's daughter, liberated at last by the death of her imperious mother, resolves to keep an eye on Florian Kilderry, and it's she who comes to witness the events that follow