Strange and cruel therapies are practiced at Casa Torquemada. Dr. Richman claims to be a minister who uses the wheel, whip, rack, and other implements to cure young men of homosexuality. But why does it get him off all the time? Is the good reverend on a mission stop homosexual behavior, or just looking for a sanctimonious rationalization that will allow him to indulge his own long-suppressed impulses? There is more than meets the eye in Barring's masterpiece of dark, searing, homoerotic B&D. As one reviewer says, "Barring is just the writer to evoke such steamy malevolence."