The Boy

Book excerpt: Who is the boy? And whose body lies beneath a sheet of blue tarpaulin in the basement of a derelict brewery? The discovery of a chilling diary sends Sean Hennessy, once a foster father to the boy, on a desperate search to unlock the secrets of his tragic past and to learn the truth about the boy’s part in the disintegration of Sean's family. The boy’s charismatic, seductive, and protean personality (he is Devon to the keepers of the Boys’ Home, Alex to the Fatman with whom he lives, Priestly to the young rent-boy who reveres him, and Durwood to Sean’s daughter) arches over this compelling novel and is mirrored in the lives of all the people Sean encounters. From these different perspectives we witness the boy’s many incarnations, which reflect, aggravate, and distort the desires of those around him, involving these characters--and ultimately Sean himself--irrevocably in the boy's mysterious intentions.