LAST SUMMER

Last summer--lost innocence--familiar theme--facile writing--but no fixative so that just like any suntan lotion it sinks without a trace. In the suspension of soft days which slide noiselessly by, Sandy and David and Peter (he tells the story such as it is) have an easy camaraderie with a touch of excitation, particularly when Sandy strips off the top of her bikini. They also con beer out of a local woman, or salvage a seagull which Sandy trains and later, inexplicably, kills; and they are joined by Rhoda, younger (fifteen), more fearful and vulnerable. At the close it is Sandy who promotes the dual rape (Rhoda's) with which the book and the summer ends. . . . As a story this doesn't cover any more ground than the top of that bikini except for the slow burn of prurience and casual cruelty symptomatic of the times. However, Hunter is enough of a professional to keep you reading in the hope that something more will be revealed.