Portland, Maine, homicide detective Joe Burgess needs a vacation. But there's a dead child in Knowlton Park.

Rolling up on the scene with a canoe on the roof and fishing poles flapping, Burgess finds little Timmy Watts, viciously stabbed, and carefully wrapped in a new blue blanket.

Timmy's parents are life-long crooks, his brothers deal drugs and his sister turns tricks. The only one who seems to care is Timmy's hearing-impaired sister, Iris. But she's keeping her secrets.

Then Iris disappears, and Burgess is battling against time to keep more children from dying.