The main protagonist, Harvey Swick, is 10 years old, and as the story begins, his extreme boredom provides the catalyst that prompts Rictus’s arrival and offer of a vacation at Holiday House. Always bold and inquisitive, Harvey accepts the invitation and delights in the House’s many pleasures before he begins to suspect that something nefarious is lurking beneath the pleasant surface of his surroundings. His determination to understand the House, escape from it, and return to free the other children are the motive force that drives the plot.

Throughout his adventure, Harvey learns deep truths about the nature of pleasure desire, and dark temptation. He also learns The Perils of Pleasure when he accepts the duplicitous gifts of strangers, and he must wrestle with his own conscience when those same strangers induce him to indulge his darker, more violent impulses. Ultimately, however, Harvey is able to break free of the House’s ominous influences and instead diverts his dark urge to kill and destroy into a heroic quest to vanquish the House and destroy its ability to abuse children.