Boy, 9, Missing

July 11, 2016
Joseph’s debut is a heart-wrenching chronicle of two families, one with a missing son, the other still reeling from the death of a son years before. In 1992, nine-year-old Lucas Scroll was found dead in a bathtub in his parents’ home in a Chicago suburb. The last person to see Lucas alive was Sam Farr, a classmate who was over for dinner that fatal night. Fast forward to 2015, when Sam’s nine-year-old son, Matthew, has gone missing, and former cop Alex Scroll, Lucas’s father, is the prime suspect. Caught in the middle of the maelstrom is Francis Scroll, now Francis Clarke, Lucas’s older brother. Confronted by the missing boy’s mother, Miranda Farr, Francis doesn’t want to believe that his father is involved, but he can’t be sure. So he sets out to find Matthew and end the newest chapter of a drama he’s tried for decades to leave behind. Only a few forgotten details, which don’t affect the overall storytelling or denouement, mar this page-turner with its haunting, well-developed characters and tantalizing plot. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary Agency.