Philip Wardman, an ordinary young man, sports one eccentricity: a neurotic fear of violence and death. Like Ferdinand, he likes to smell the flowers, particularly those in his mother"s garden, where stands a statue of the goddess Flora, who over time has come to represent all the female virtues.Imagine Philip"s consternation when, at his sister"s wedding, he encounters a living incarnation of the marble Flora: Senta Pelham, an actress happily contemptuous of conventional morality. She comes to him that night.But Senta has a dark side. Where death frightens Philip, it fascinates her. She proposes a wicked test: to prove his love he needs to kill."Vintage Rendell. Shrewd psychological insight, irresistible narrative force...a true member of that small family of great living authors." --Scott Turow