A boy sees a man commit a murder, then later that day the murderer calls on his mother with flowers. So begins the tense tale of a con man exploiting a love-starved woman, with an alcoholic husband and three children, and a boy who keeps a murder secret to avoid ruining his mother's happiness. The setting is a small town in Vermont, the time the 1960s.

"Earnest and innocent, a bright high school student, Jim grows curious about the unspoken 'trouble in the family' that haunts his father, a small-town newspaper editor, and his grandfather, a raconteur who keeps the Kinnesons' secrets to himself. Layer by layer, tale by tale, sorting out fact from deliberately obscured legend, Jim explores the Kinnesons' long relationship with others in the Kingdom, culminating in a discovery that forever changes...