As a doctor's office nurse in New York City, Cherry Ames faces new challenges and makes some extraordinary new friends. First in importance is her dynamo of an employer, Dr. William Fairall. Glamorous theatrical patients flock to his Victorian brownstone offices. His assistant, young Dr. Grey Russell, plays a vital role in Cherry's eventful summer--and so do funny little elderly Dr. Lamb and the strangely moody medical secretary Irene Wick.

Among the interesting, colorful people Cherry meets are a stricken ballet dancer, her handsome actor husband, and their adorable baby, who move into the vacant top floor of the brownstone.

And when her nurse friends, with whom she shares an apartment in Greenwich Village, inherit an old house near a beach in a charming summer resort area of eastern Long Island, Cherry foresees especially gay, carefree weekends.

But Cherry's expectations are soon shattered. Confronted by a mysterious, alarming series of events, the pretty nurse finds that she needs all of her detective skills when the clue of the dinosaur plunges her into the center of intrigue.