Jim and Daisy Harker are a young, well-to-do Californian couple, and though childless they maintain the sort of domestic happiness that others can only aspire to. But a darkness exists at the outer edges of Daisy's mind and she has no idea why it's there. In a series of recurring nightmares she wanders a cemetery, eventually finding her own gravestone. According to the dream, December 2nd, 1955 is the day she died.
Street smart but honorable, Stevens Pinata is a man with his own mysteries. An orphan left on a church doorstep as a child, he's now a private investigator working with bail bonds and quick shakedowns. But when a pretty young woman like Daisy Harker comes into his office with a crazy request to 'find her lost day' he is intrigued. He is too decent to take advantage of a crazy woman, but Mr. Harker is a wealthy man and who is Pinata to turn down money?
What unfolds is a masterpiece of suspense and one of the books that forever changed the domestic thriller. Millar's razor sharp prose cuts a masterful plot and slashes at the racism, sexism, and entitlement endemic to an era otherwise celebrated for its prosperity.