Courtney Marsh, sort of a Barbara Walters (even if she may not wear a georgette gown) decides to do another kind of interviewing--into her past because she was adopted--left only with the pendant of a unicorn. This takes her down to East Hampton, Long Island, where living in one of those attractive weathered old ones--The Shingles--there's an artist who has left unicorn insignia in her paintings. Courtney discovers all kinds of interfamilial family connections (not always connecting) as well as the vague suggestion of a baby that died as well as more immediate realities--adultery, two murders, kidnapping, blackmail. The Whitney name is as much of a talisman as that unicorn and who's to doubt its visibility.