More than twenty years ago, the body of a beautiful little boy was found in a vacant lot. While the police worked day and night to try to identify the child and bring his killer to justice, the years gradually passed and they still could get nowhere. Meanwhile, Joseph Kyle, a newspaper columnist, was also caught up in the hunt. He spent almost every free hour trying to solve the mystery, much at the loss of his family life, particularly that of his son David.

Then the father died and David, a writer of thrillers, vowed he would not get involved in the hunt that had just about destroyed the relationship between him and his father. But gradually he begins to pick up clues to the mystery that start to drag him into the case. A few were those his father had gathered, but more were ones of his own that eventually have David totally caught up in the mystery of the “lonely” dead boy, his identity and, most chilling of all, the horror and poignancy of his death.