There are three rules in Black River Falls: 1. Don't break curfew unless you want the monsters to find you. 2. Don't ask questions, no matter what. 3. When someone goes missing, don't go looking. Joey Barnes obeyed those rules, until the day her mother vanished without a trace. She's spent two years secretly hunting for clues, and she's discovered plenty of things that don't make sense, even for Black River Falls. Like the fact that Harrison Pelt keeps a chest full of weapons under a loose floorboard in his porch. Or that there's a steel door hidden behind a shelf of old books in the library. She's become so good at snooping, she's found enough strange facts to fill up her favorite purple journal. What she hasn't found is her mother. When her best friend, Emily, goes missing, too, and the grown-ups seem ready to accept it, Joey decides enough is enough. Relying on unlikely friendships and a streak of stubbornness, Joey is determined to find her friend, solve the mystery that plagues Black River Falls, and, if she's lucky, find her mother, too. That is, if the monsters don't find her first.
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