Raymond Davis, a 15 year old newcomer to his community, shoots and kills a man and walks away from the crime scene $4 richer. As a part of pending criminal proceedings, a psychologist (represented as the author) is appointed to study the young killer. Finding the boy to be far more than a distressing statistic, the good doctor muses about his conversations with the youth, the teens pitiable parents, and attorneys. Along the way, Raymond challenges the psychologists conventional definitions of spiritual wholeness. The boy looks for, and finds, meaning in the shadows of the most intimate of crimes: murder. In the end, the young predator meets justice, but along the way he and his psychological examiner fall deeply into a discourse that connects this teenage murderer to all of Humankind.