When ten-year-old Teddy Stride wanted to impress the professional snoop down the street, he opened his own detective agency. But when Teddy's father goes off the rails, and his precocious investigative prowess fails him, he turns to the only firm he knows who might be able to find out what's wrong before it's too late: Clarke Lantham Investigations. Clarke Lantham hates family squabbles, but something about Teddy makes it impossible to say no. Lantham had no way to know that taking the case would send him straight to the heart of the biggest academic scandal in state history, and set him on a collision course with ghosts from his past that could jeopardize his freedom, ruin his career, and endanger the life of everyone he loves.