1966. For the past five years, Ewan Redstone has bullied and neglected his youngest son, Tommy. There seems to be no way out for Tommy, or for Cale, Tommy's older brother. Then one day Cale finds his father trapped under a pile of wood. He will die under there if Cale doesn't get help. But never mind help. In a moment of dark clarity, Cale ends his father's life, and at last he and Tommy are free. Then Cale makes a shocking discovery. He finds his mother's dead body buried in an old stable at the back of their house. It seems she didn't leave home after all, that Cale's father must have killed her. Now Cale must keep this secret from Tommy. But with their father dead, secrets become hard to keep from a boy who wants his mother back...and who will do anything to find her. And now Cale understands why the girl in the orange dress removed the I and the E from the stable door, so that instead of the letters spelling Sadie's Place, they spell Sad's Place. Yes, Cale understands, all right. Sad's Place. It all begins to make a perfect, terrible sense.