On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis
sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain
in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her
childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.
By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for
ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even
imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's
imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime
for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.