Beyong the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire,smooth and brown as a sunning snake-but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface.This is where Framboise,a secretive widow named after a raspberry liqueur,plies her culinary trade at the creperie-and lets her memory play strange games. Into this world comes the threat of revelation as Framboise`s nephew-a profiteering Parisian-attempts to exploit the growing success of the country pecipes she has inherited from her mother,a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers of Les Laveuses.As the spilt blood of a tragic wartime childhood flows again,exposure beckons for Framboise,the widow with an invented past.