The author of The Clearing now surpasses himself with a story whose range and cast of characters is broader still, with the fate of a stolen child looming throughout.After World War I, Sam Simoneaux returns to New Orleans determined to leave mayhem and destruction behind, and to start anew with his wife years after losing a son to illness. But when a little girl disappears from the department store where he works, he has no recourse but to join her musician parents on a Mississippi excursion steamboat, hoping to unearth clues somewhere along the river. Though ill-prepared ...