Dennis Lehane

rama set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding nearby.

The plot centers on two private investigators, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, hunting for an abducted four-year-old girl from the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester.

Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood in 1997. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led savvy, tough-nosed investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl - only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is 16 - and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking at Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, bright young woman who hasn't been seen in two weeks. Haunted by the past, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most, following a 12-year trail of secrets and lies down the darkest alleys of Boston's gritty, blue-collar streets. Assuring themselves that this time will be different, they vow to make good on their promise to find Amanda and see that she is safe. But their determination to do the right thing holds dark implications Kenzie and Gennaro aren't prepared for ... consequences that could cost them not only Amanda's life, but their own.