A brashly manipulative story (two in fact, not altogether aligned or resolved) about Rodger Anastasian, a lawyer operating on the other side of his profession when he goes into partnership with a virtual stranger fencing gems to Mexico. Easy money and lots of it. Harder to get away with are his relationships with three women: Maureen whom he marries briefly and with whom he remains on good, when not intimate, terms; Sarah, her daughter, beddable from the time she's fourteen; and finally Doralee who drifts into his life from an obscure past, Doralee ""player of games"" or just insecure? Doralee whose death is sudden and accidental (homicide? Sarah?). Lambert tells his story with a lush effrontery but who can write a line like ""our first lovemaking was not the proverbial sinking into a bottomless pit of desire"" without grazing the rocks.