Recuperating from a broken hip sustained four months ago, wealthy Cornelia Hilyard had a portable elevator installed temporarily in the home she shares with her thirty year old single son, Malcolm Hilyard. Shortly after Malcolm leaves for the extended July 4th weekend during a summer heatwave, Cornelia gets trapped in the elevator when a short circuit occurs, the front grated elevator car hovering approximately ten feet above her living room foyer, she only having access to those few items she brought into the elevator with her: beyond those items on her person, a book, a transistor radio, her cane and a vase containing a single flower. All her efforts to get out using the elevator's emergency functions only attract the wrong elements as two associated but disparate groups break into her house initially with the sole purpose of robbing her of everything, they able to do so partly in being able to conduct their business out of her view. In the process, none of the five people involved seem to care about her whatsoever. Things change when one of the five, Randall Simpson O'Connell, the leader of the group of younger thugs, he who has spent most of his formative years in a reformatory, decides that in addition he wants to commit murder, including of Cornelia. If Cornelia is able to survive in the short term, the nature of the situation may further change due to something that Malcolm had left for her just before he left.