Halloween, 1955.
A frantic young mother tells police her three-year-old son and infant daughter have gone missing from outside a suburban supermarket on an otherwise tranquil Fall afternoon. The girl is found a short time later, unharmed.
The boy? Gone, without a trace.
The debut novel by national award-winning journalist and critically-acclaimed author John A. Valenti 3rd, For Nothing is Hidden is the story of the desperate hunt for little Bobby Goodson — a mystery that takes the reader from 1950s Long Island to modern-day America en route to its surprising end. Inspired by the mysterious 1955 disappearance of Steven Damman, subject of one of the oldest unsolved missing child cold cases in U.S. history, Valenti uses his award-winning reporting skills to blend pieces of the real police investigation into the telling of a fictionalized tale that unfolds like a true-crime narrative — a story set against the multi-layered backdrop of historic events that inspired it: tragic plane crashes, the notable Peter Weinberger kidnapping and Boy in the Box mystery; even the infamous society shooting of millionaire William Woodward, Jr., at the hands of his wife, Ann.
The story begins with a grown man at the bedside of his dying mother, searching for answers to his unfortunate life. What follows is the story of the search for little Bobby Goodson, the agonies faced by his parents and the police investigators conducting that search — a search that, ultimately, will span generations.
You might think you know the answer to the mystery from the very first pages. Truth is, you won't.
A story only truly appreciated once you've reached the surprising end, For Nothing is Hidden holds dear its close-held secrets until the final breath.
