A last summer of innocence for two best friends turns terrifying. It begins with a dead boy found down a well and blossoms into a summer of horror. A gripping tale of murder and terror in a small town called Centerville. This is a book you won't put down. Meet Sheriff John Shambach who is consumed with the many tragedies happening in the nearby village of Centerville. Where his own niece is brutally attacked. Through his investigations of fire and murder, the facts simply don't add up.
Meet Jimmy Harris and Ben Snyder, who live in the village, and are well on the way of discovering the identity of the evil monster living amongst them. They discover who was responsible for the terrifying events at the Firemen's Carnival, where Betsy Smith was brutally murdered, and the sheriff's niece is attacked. They piece together the clues to what actually happened to Patrick Marks and why his pants were on backwards. And why he was found down a well.
Through this summer of horror, they unearth the facts that the sheriff is unable to find, and they identify the serial killer in their midst. How does a small insular society cope with tragedy after tragedy in that hot summer of 1955?
Twenty years pass and now Ben Snyder is a detective deputy sheriff in the same quiet central Pennsylvania area where he grew up.
The peacefulness in Centerville is shattered by the murder of an elderly woman who is confined to a wheelchair. Ben finds it suspicious that the woman is found in the cellar with her wheelchair but the chair is too wide to fit through the doorway. Not long after that a local Mennonite girl is brutally murdered and Ben struggles with the few clues to solve either case. His best is the print of a boot found in the mud near the dead girl. A sudden revelation opens things up and leads him back to his own childhood and the horrible events in Centerville in the summer of 1955.
