You don’t reform troubled boys with fists and fear. Unless you want them to fight back. 1949, Tennessee. When Michaela “Mickey” Braxton’s teenage brother is sentenced to Lakestone School for Boys, a so-called reform school with a grim reputation, she starts asking questions no one wants to answer. The school’s gates hide more than troubled boys—they hide ghosts. Boys have disappeared. Others bear the scars of what they lived through. As Mickey digs deeper, her new marriage to Tennessee’s Attorney General places her directly in Lakestone’s crosshairs. The more she uncovers, the more someone wants her quiet. When she and a friend are abducted, Mickey learns firsthand what the guards are hiding—and what justice really costs. Lakestone School for Boys is a gripping blend of Southern noir, psychological suspense, and historical crime , set against the brutal legacy of institutional abuse in mid-century America. Some institutions don’t deserve to be saved. And not every boy makes it out alive. Fans of The Nickel Boys , Before We Were Strangers , and The Girls Who Went Away will be hooked by this haunting, hard-hitting drama.