A Certain Summer

Nothing ever changes at Wauregan...

That is the mystique of the idyllic island summer colony, the comforting belief its multi-generation families have lived by for half a century. But in 1948, after a world war has upended countless lives, it is not certain that the islanders will be able to return to "the old days"—and for Helen Wadsworth, the war is not over.

Helen's husband, Arthur was declared missing in action during an OSS operation in France, and she is unable to find out what happened, or whether he might, even now, be alive. Raising a teenage son, who, like his mother longs to know the truth, Helen turns to Frank Hartman, her husband's best friend and his partner on the OSS mission on which Arthur was lost, while Frank escaped. But Frank seems more intent on filling the void in Helen's life, which Arthur has left than in answering her questions.

And then Peter Gavin, a young Marine who was captured and tortured by the...