"In the mid-1970s, as a serial killer called the Snowman stalks the streets of suburban Detroit and the racial tension that had ripped the city in half a decade earlier continues to underscore every aspect of daily life, Mattie and Spencer, two exceptionally bright eleven year-old boys, wage an increasingly desperate and misguided campaign to save their friend Theresa, a brilliant, cryptic, troubled young girl, from descending into terrifying mental illness. The final, grand act of that campaign has shattering effects on many lives, drives Mattie's family from their home, and ultimately lures him, seventeen years later, back to Detroit to seek out his lost friends and make one last attempt to set things right."--BOOK JACKET.