1978: Morris Bellamy is so obsessed by America's iconic author John Rothstein he is prepared to kill for a trove of notebooks containing at least one more unpublished novel. 2009: Pete Saubers, a boy whose father was brutally injured by a stolen Mercedes, discovers a buried trunk containing cash and Rothstein's notebooks. 2013: after 35 years in prison, Morris is up for parole. And he's hell-bent on recovering his treasure. It's up to retired detective Bill Hodges, running an investigative company called Finders Keepers, to rescue Pete from an ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris.