Bored socialite Polly Brewster has cajoled her father into renting a villa in a politically unstable but beautiful Central American nation, Caracuą. Her intent: to get away from three suitors whose persistence she finds annoying. One of the three is so intent on marriage that he follows her South. It is while trying to avoid him that she encounters an American unlike any other man she has ever known. Perkins is a naturalist, a "beetle man," who looks something like a beetle himself in his overlarge, patched clothing and thick dark glasses. A semi-recluse, he avoids the company of his fellow expatriates, searching the forest and beach for specimens during the day and living in a hilltop compound, which may or may not also house a young woman. Intrigued, Polly wonders if it is possible to uncover all the secrets he seems so determined to hide

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