The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker

He had been idling in the sun, half dozing and half watching a mail Jeep make box deliveries along the beach road when she suddenly appeared in his line of sight: The beach had been deserted except for himself, the Jeep, and the hungry gulls the inland tourists with their loud transistor radios wouldn’t be along for another several weeks. He watched the approach, already resenting her.

The furies had been hounding him since he left Tel Aviv - since the book was published - hounding him and crying heresy in voices hoarse with indignation. When he saw the object she carried - and its bright red dustjacket couldn’t be missed - he was tempted to jump from the beach chair and run anyway. When he realized the girl was coming at him, coming for him, he felt dismay and wished he’d had time to run for it. No more than that - and a faint expression of disapproval - was evident.Ĭhaney intended to make short work of her. The leap between those two points was enormous.īrian Chaney was aware of only a third symbol when he discovered her: she was wearing a hip-length summer blouse over delta pants. The operation began when she confronted him on a Florida beach, breaking his euphoria it ended when he found her sign on a grave marker, hard by a Nabataean cistern.

The leggy girl was both alpha and omega: the two embodied in the same compact bundle.

The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker