Allegory of the Truth
The narrator who is known as Detective Ryan uses an allegory to explain how sought the truth is by detectives. The allegory is that the truth is the most desirable woman and they (the detectives) are the most jealous lovers. The allegory has depicted the truth as a most desirable woman because it is highly sought after and wanted by the detectives.
Motif of Children's Murders
The murder cases of children are several in the novel. The most examined by the novel are the disappearance and presumed murder of Jaime and Peter in 1984 and the murder of Katy Delvin in the context of the novel. These murders both occur at Knocknaree Town in Ireland. The purpose of this motif is to build the theme of the novel which is to solve murders involving children.
Motif of Stories within a story
In the novel, various stories are told alongside the main story which is solving the murders of Peter, Jaime and Katy Delvin. Examples of these interjectory stories are the story of Ryan in boarding school, the story of Cassie as an undercover agent and the story of Jamie's mother. These stories are used by the narrator to build on the characters by giving the reader some background information on them.
Allegory of Katy's Case
Detective Ryan uses an allegory to describe the murder case of Katy Delvin and its effect on him. The detective describes it as, '... an endless infuriating streetcorner or shell game.' This was because he always ended up starting all over again when the leads that he had proved to be useless.
Motif of nightmares among the characters
In the novel, the characters who are involved in the cases of Katy, Jaime and Peter all have nightmares throughout the novel. This is because the murders were so gruesome that they imprinted themselves in the minds of the characters associated with them. Detective Ryan has frequent nightmares regarding his two childhood friends Jaime and Peter who had disappeared in 1984.
