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When a young girl is murdered, the only witness is a severely autistic boy. This acclaimed novel plumbs two mysteries: an appalling crime and the inscrutable workings of a locked-in mind.

Two children wander off from their school playground during recess. Hours later, they are found in the woods: one murdered, the other hiding near the body. Adam, the survivor and the only witness, is a nine-year-old autistic boy who cannot describe what he saw or heard.
Barely verbal on the best of days, Adam has retreated into a silence that Cara, his mother, knows only too well. As a single mother, she has devoted her life to opening paths of communication between her son and the outside world. Now she must interpret the changes in Adam's behaviorGÇÉnot only to help him through the trauma of his experience, but also to help the police catch a killer.
A powerful story of the emotional bond between mother and son, and a thrilling novel of psychological suspense, this is a fascinating journey into the mind of a child in crisis and a mother determined to bring him through unscathed.


From Publishers Weekly


This is a difficult book for a reader. Fletcher has a clean, clear voice for the narrator and for Cara, mother of an autistic child who is found in the woods near the dead body of a retarded girl. But her other voices are unconvincing; they all sound so off that it's hard to distinguish autistic children and adults from those who aren't. Morgan, the boy who solves the murder, sounds like a deranged adult, while young Chris, who lures a teen bully into the woods, sounds like a peculiar man uttering short, jerky words and phrases. Although wrapped like a mystery, this is really a book about autism, about the numerous forms it can take, about parents who do or don't devote themselves to understanding and helping their children. All of this is genuinely interesting, but as a novel it's contrived. The children's interior monologues give the reader a glimpse into their thought processes, but are so detailed they don't ring true. (One child distinguishes between 'mean' and 'cruel' behavior-verbal vs. physical abuse.) The mystery is less compelling than the author's valuable insights into our 'compassion, disdain, terror and pity' for these youngsters.
Copyright -¬ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist


McGovern's follow-up to
The Art of Seeing (2002), centers on a nine-year-old autistic boy, Adam, who witnesses the murder of a classmate. Disturbed by what he saw, Adam retreats into himself, frustrating the police and worrying his mother, Cara, who has watched Adam's development with a nervous eye since he was diagnosed with autism. Cara is fearful of the effect the murder will have on her son, but she's also surprised to find the investigation dredging up her own past: the officer assigned to the case is the younger brother of her former best friend, whom she hasn't spoken to in almost a decade. And another old friend, who might just be Adam's father, has come back into her life. Tightly woven and gripping, this literary mystery takes several unexpected twists and turns as it builds to the resolution.
Kristine Huntley

Copyright -¬ American Library Association. All rights reserved


From AudioFile


A child has been murdered, and the only witness won't talk. This is fairly common stuff in murder mysteries, but this witness is a boy locked up by autism. Adam's view of the world around him is interesting, and the plot itself is thought provoking since the reader hears about an assortment of people with communication challenges as the mystery untangles.