The Skallies, a row of tumbledown houses built on the windlashed coast, was a wild and curious place. A place for people down on their luck. A place where people went to hide. Ten-year-old Archie Grimble, with his crippled leg and one good eye, lived a miserable existence there until a chance encounter with an unhappy little girl and the discovery of a secret diary set him on a mission to unravel the mystery of a boy who drowned off Skilly Point in August, 1900. But Archie's investigation was to have unexpected consequences. A shocking murder and an unexplained abduction were to shatter his exciting new world forever. Only many years later, on his return to the ruined Skallies, does Archie stumble on the final pieces of a puzzle that has haunted him since childhood - and the extraordinary truth about the disappearance of Thomas Greswode is at last revealed.