Twelve years ago, Mattatuck, New York, was a small town with a big mystery. One day, Chester Morton disappeared without a trace. The only thing he seemed to have taken with him was his backpack -- the truck he loved was left behind, all of his clothes were accounted for, and no one knew where he went. His mother was convinced foul play was involved, and she spent money putting up billboards advertising his disappearance and asking for information of his whereabouts. Suddenly, one day, Chester's body is found, hanging from one such billboard.

Even more mysterious than the body hanging from the billboard is the fact that the body is recently deceased, which means that Chester was alive until recently. Where has he been all this time? Did he return home only to have someone local kill him? Or did he commit suicide from "his" billboard?

Facing local pressure, the Mattatuck police commissioner calls in former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian to consult on the case. Despite some misgivings because of some events going on at home, Demarkian takes the case, but he soon realizes that this case will not be easy. Police commissioner Howard Androcoelho is bumbling and incompetent, the town lacks the proper facilities to perform an autopsy - heck, it doesn't even have a morgue! And the rote excuse is that "it's a small town" since no one seems to have realized that the "small town" has actually been growing.

Once Demarkian started truly investigating, I found the book compelling. However, I thought it took awhile for the story to take off. The beginning of the book was also a little confusing because nearly every character in the book was introduced in the first several chapters at breakneck pace, whether or not they were vital to the plot. To try to keep straight so many characters and how they all fit together (or whether they even did in the first place) was an exercise in frustration.

But once I understood the pieces and the players, the story itself was intriguing. I always had my suspicions about who might have been involved, and while I was right, it was really only a lucky guess as I had absolutely no ideas about what the person's motive(s) might have been. The story left a few loose ends that I wish had been wrapped up since I doubt the characters of this town will be revisited in a future book.