During a sweltering summer, Dills must come to terms with a horrific crime and the parent he loves who committed it. Dills and his mom have returned to Hamilton, her hometown, hoping to leave the horrors of Wilkson behind. But it's impossible to really run from tragedy, and trouble always follows trouble. When Dills hurts a new classmate, it comes out in court that he was in the Wilkson Collegiate library when the shooter came in. But he won't talk about what he saw, what he still sees whenever he closes his eyes. He can't. He definitely can't tell anyone that the Wilkson Shooter is his stepfather Jesse, that Jesse can speak into his mind from hundreds of kilometres away, and that Dills still loves him even though he committed an unspeakable crime.