The iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser returns in an outstanding new addition to the
New York Times-bestselling series from author Ace Atkins.
What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile
facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank twitter account for his vice principal, he
never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that’s exactly what happened.
This is Blackburn, Massachusetts, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life. Leading the
movement is hard-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough on today’s
wild youth. But Dillon’s mother, who knows other Blackburn kids who are doing hard time for
minor infractions, isn’t buying Scali’s line. She hires Spenser to find the truth behind the
Draconian sentencing.
From the Harbor Islands to a gated Florida community, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk follow a
trail through the Boston underworld with links to a shadowy corporation that runs New
England’s private prisons. They eventually uncover a culture of corruption and cover-ups in the
old mill town, where hundreds of kids are sent off to for-profit juvie jails.
