Die Golds und die Hartes sind Nachbarn in einer wohlhabenden Stadt in New Hampshire und seit vielen Jahren eng befreundet. Ihre Kinder, Chris und Emily, wachsen miteinander auf. Von Kindesbeinen an sind sie unzertrennlich bis sich diese innige Freundschaft in der High School in eine romantische Liebe verwandelt. Die Eltern sind zufrieden, da sie mit dieser Verbindung gerechnet haben. Doch dann bricht eine völlig unerwartete Tragödie über sie herein, die das Glück von Chris und Emily zerstört.
Until the phone calls came at three o'clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is dead?shot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father's cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pact?leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
From New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult?one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction?comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence.
