This is the first time this author ever tried letting a ventriloquist's puppet tell a story as narrator from its own point of view. Zearlop is a fancy sock-puppet zebra with moving eyes, moving eyebrows, moving mouth, and an attached ventriloquist who can barely speak for himself, and then only with the help of his puppet. It is a story about dealing with a serial killer and child molester in your own home town, and the great difficulties of solving the crimes when you can't communicate through normal means. Murray Dawes faces life in prison for crimes he never committed, and was himself a victim of, a situation that can only be dealt with on a small stage with a talking puppet on your right arm.