Stephen M. Ryder

With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.

A beautiful but disturbed young woman returns to the US after combat as a American mercenary in Iraq and abducts a 14-year-old New York boy, holding him prisoner in her isolated country home as a bizarre relationship develops.

South of the Moon is the story of a young boy and his uncle, one dealing with the complexity and confusion of adolescence, the other with the pain and torment of regret.