The story is about the existential highly educated, rebellious kid, whose only protection with the world outside his brilliant mind is his sarcastic wit and his subversive private school demeanor.
At seventeen he finds himself still haunted by his mother's abandonment and horrific suicide, the loneliness he felt since age five, and the emotional void that came from an absent father. The real drama is whether he can come to grips and separate fact from fiction in order to keep his own sanity intact, when a perfect stranger, who has a penchant for mystery and homicide, suggests his mother, was actually a victim of foul play.
Oliver toes a curious line between Holden Caulfield and Philip Marlowe. It's like "Catcher in the Rye" with the added flavor of a murder mystery. This is the kind of book you'll be telling your friends they have to read!