They play a game of strip poker, and after a while, Zephyr and Moss go to a bedroom. Following the party, Trixie and Jason, along with Zephyr and Moss, a friend of Jason’s, are still at the house. Sex games are being played, and although Trixie attempts to participate, ultimately she cannot bring herself to do so. In an attempt to help her, Zephyr throws a party where there will be no adult supervision. Trixie’s friend Zephyr encourages Trixie to take steps to make Jason jealous in order to win him back. She tells him that she cannot imagine going on without him, but he is firm in insisting that the relationship is over. At the start of the story, Jason and Trixie have just broken up, and she is despondent. Trixie runs to Alaska where Daniel grew up, sending Daniel and Laura on a quest to find her. Jason falls from a bridge and, while it is at first viewed as a suicide, it later is thought that Trixie may have pushed him. While Daniel is a comic book artist who comes from a difficult background, Laura is a college professor romantically involved with one of her students. Daniel and Trixie’s mother, Laura, become involved in unraveling the events that follow. Most take Jason’s side, who claims that their encounter was consensual. Trixie accuses Jason Underhill, her ex-boyfriend, of raping her.

Daniel’s daughter, Trixie Stone, is a high school freshman. In a unique literary structure, the novel’s plot and subplot are shown in juxtaposition via a comic, The Tenth Circle by the character Daniel with the comic representing Daniel’s life.

The title of the book comes from the first canticle of The Divine Comedy. There are symbolic references to Dante’s The Divine Comedy, in particular, the “Inferno” section. Jodi Picoult’s novel The Tenth Circle (2006) has date rape as a central plot and delves into the facets of father/daughter relationships.

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