It is 1971 and fifteen-year-old Hutch Van Buren is growing up carefree in the small industrial town of Crystalton, Ohio. Hutch and three of his buddies are searching for arrowheads when there is an altercation with Petey Sanchez, a troubled seventeen-year-old. The next time Petey is seen, a berry picker finds his body in the weeds on Chestnut Ridge.

Hutch and his friends become ensnared in a web of secrets and moral dilemmas. Even when One-Eyed Jack, a local ne’er-do-well and child molester goes to prison for the crime, the boys keep their pact of silence, each shouldering the burden of truth in his own way as he attempts to leave the past behind.

Thirty-three years later, in 2004, Van Buren is the successful prosecuting attorney in Summit County, Ohio, and a candidate for state attorney general when he learns that he isn’t the only one keeping a secret.
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USA Book News

2011 Book of the Year
for Mystery/Suspense

Robin Yocum was born in 1955 in Steubenville, Ohio, and grew up in the in the Eastern Ohio village of Brilliant. He is an award-winning journalist and the author of three books.
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