This is Sue Grafton’s twenty-first novel and in this novel she breaks the genre formulas, giving us a slanting, intricate, surprise-filled, and totally satisfying thriller.
In April 1988 Kinsey Millhone's is alone in her office doing some paperwork when a young man arrives unexpectedly. This young man has a preppy air about him. He looked as if he'd be carded if he tried to buy booze. His name is Michael Sutton. He is twenty-seven year old unemployed college dropout. Some twenty-one years ago, a four-year-old girl disappeared mysteriously. There was a recent reference to her kidnapping and this has prompted a flood of memories. Sutton now considers that he tripped upon her lonely burial when he was six years old. Now he wants Kinsey's assistance in locating the child's remnants. He also wants to find the men who killed her. It’s a very difficult task but he's willing to pay cash up front for it, and Kinsey agrees to give him a day. As her investigations starts to unfold, she discovers that Michael Sutton has an anxious association with the truth. In the essence, he's the only boy who cried wolf.
Sue Grafton has moved the description between the eighties and the sixties, changing various points of view, constructing numerous subplots, and producing outstanding characters. In the end, we see how they all get connected.