In the sweltering heart of the Florida Everglades, where secrets sink into the muck and the truth is buried deep, one boy is about to deliver the story that could destroy his town-or get him killed. Palmetto Creek, 1974. The air is thick with the sweet smell of citrus and the whispered secrets of the powerful Jarvis family, who rule their sun-bleached kingdom with an iron fist. For sixteen-year-old Leo Crane, the only escape from his cramped life is his pre-dawn paper route-a silent, solitary world where he feels, for a fleeting moment, in control. But one suffocating summer morning, Leo witnesses something he wasn't meant to see: a frantic, hushed argument between the town's golden boy, Chip Jarvis, and his menacing fixer. He hears the panic in Chip's voice. He sees the long, sinister scratch on the door of a prized Camaro. Days later, another girl vanishes. The third in two years. The sheriff calls them runaways. The newspaper buries the story. The town, bought and paid for by the Jarvis empire, chooses to look the other way. Everyone is willing to forget. Leo can't. Driven by a gut-wrenching suspicion, Leo and his only friend, a swamp-wise kid called Gator, begin to peel back the sunny veneer of their small town. What they find is a web of corruption so deep it chokes the very life from the Glades. Their search for answers will lead them from the manicured lawns of the elite to the treacherous, gator-infested heart of the swamp, where the past doesn't stay buried-it waits. Armed with nothing but a bicycle and a desperate need for the truth, Leo is about to become the only thing standing between a monster and their next victim. But in a town where everyone owns a piece of the lie, exposing the horror could cost him everything-his future, his best friend, and his very life. The Paperboy is a masterfully tense and atmospheric thriller that captures the end of an era and the courage it takes to shatter a legacy of silence. For fans of Sharp Objects, Where the Crawdads Sing, and True Detective, this novel will pull you into its humid, haunting world and hold you under until the very last, breathless page.