George Barclay would be the first to tell you that he is an unlikely hero, that he has never done anything remotely courageous in his entire life. A talented, respected television journalist, yes, but in most other ways an ordinary man, something of a social misfit at that: overweight, single, shy, ill-at-ease almost everywhere except in his newsroom. So how does he become the center of an intriguing mystery surrounding the rape and murder of a high school classmate almost twenty years before? A mystery that puts Barclay and those around him in the sights of a psychotic killer who has been hiding in the shadows of time. It is a story of teenage obsession, of a long-lost first love, and of Barclay's efforts to find justice for a woman he hardly knew, justice that has eluded police for decades. All in the face of a professional crisis that could cost him and his colleagues their jobs, and their city the loss of a great television station.