When Amanda McCready was four years old, she vanished from a Boston suburb. Investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro found her—only to arrange her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is 16, and gone again. Assuring themselves that this time will be different, Kenzie and Gennaro plunge into the darkest alleys of Boston's gritty, blue-collar streets to find her, in this sixth case in the series (after Prayers for Rain). Only now, the two investigators will have to face up to the impossible decision they made long ago.

"[Dennis] Lehane's writing, as always, is tight, vivid and brilliantly assured." —Chicago Tribune