Author(s): Elisabeth George

Fiction

When thirteen-year-old Matthew Whateley goes missing from Bredgar Chambers, a prestigious public  school in the heart of West Sussex, aristocratic  Inspector Thomas Lynley receives a call for help from  the lad's housemaster, who also happens to be an  old school chum. Thus, the inspector, his partner,  Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, and forensic  scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James find themselves once again outside their jurisdiction and deeply  involved in the search for a child--and then,  tragically for a child killer. Questioning prefects,  teachers, and pupils closest to the dead boy, Lynley  and Havers sense that something extraordinarily  evil is going on behind Bredgar Chambers's  cloistered walls. But as they begin to unlock the secrets  of this closed society, the investigaton into  Matthew's death leads them perilously close to their own  emotional wounds--and blinds them to the signs  of another murder in the making...