Americans John and Florence Dowell maintain a distanced but amiable friendship with Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, a British couple they met at a spa. Dowell finds Ashburnham to be quite admirable, but as the book progresses, more and more of Ashburnham's character is revealed, causing the reader--and eventually Dowell himself--to question Dowell's own credibility. The story is told in a fragmented, impressionistic manner, and is the quintessential tale told by an unreliable narrator.
