Late on a hot summer night in 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of fourteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, sixteen years old, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress. Jasper takes him to his secret glade in the bush, and its here that Charlie bears witness to Jaspers horrible discovery.In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.