Synopsis for Child - B…by Tom J Vowler

"What are little boys made of?"

Michael knows his body's cells regenerate themselves every couple of years. Like everyone, he gets a new heart, a new pair of lungs, new skin; everything but his brain and nerves are new in a cellular sense. He therefore reasons that he is literally not the same person who, as a ten-year-old, was part of a gang that murdered a boy. This is how Michael lives with himself. This is how he looks Sarah in the eye each day; how he goes to work and functions, how he looks in the mirror. He is different now.

Donna is a bitter woman. Every waking hour is merely a vehicle to finding the boys, now men, who killed her son nineteen years ago. The government protects them, so do the police; but she knows in time she will find them. There is nothing else to exist for.

Hannah has been hired by Donna to trace her son's killers – now all in their late twenties. The rewards are considerable, but the deeper she gets, the more she is compelled to question her own morality. The leads appear to dry up, until a quirk of fate leaves a trail for Hannah. Tracking Michael, Hannah is now faced with the likely consequences of reporting back to her employer.

The caustic force of guilt pervades throughout this psychological drama, questioning the potential for redemption, asking whether family secrets exist which love cannot conquer or forgive. When Sarah learns who Michael is, her world crumbles, and standing by him seems too much to ask. As the story unfurls, pasts hurtle towards all concerned, climaxing in a swell of vigilantism.

A tender yet dark and disturbing tale, human depravity simmers beneath the narrative, asking the reader to question the very nature of childhood and the dilemma of what to do with children who murder.

Can love survive when you find out your partner is a life member of the most sinister club?