When Jon Mote is hired to investigate the murder of his erstwhile mentor, literary star Richard Pratt, the grad school dropout feels woefully unequal to the task. Skittering on the edge of madness, his only source of hope is the dogged love of his developmentally disabled sister, Judy, who serves as cheerleader, critic and moral compass.Soon the siblings find themselves haunting the neighbourhoods of Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota - from crime scenes to the halls of academe - exposing a series of suspects along the way. When he stumbles upon Pratt's terrible secret, Mote is prompted to discover an equally dreadful mystery in his own past - a revelation that accelerates his descent into darkness and puts both himself and Judy at grave risk.