Eleven-year-old Marianne Cadogan lives a lonely life with her stern, often absent father in a big house by the sea. When, one day, a stranger rescues Marianne from the rising tide, she believes she's found a friend at last.

Then Marianne and her rescuer, Ryan O'Donnell, vanish.

Patrick Cadogan convinces the police that his daughter was kindapped, even as Marianne and Ryan are racing to Germany to find her missing mother... even as Ryan O'Donnell hides the crime for which he can never be forgiven... and even as Marianne comes closer to the truth she must never, never be allowed to discover...