Summer 1958. Cold War era. America lives on the edge between constant fear and well-fed philistine peace. While catching crayfish, teenager Davy Moran meets his new neighbor Meg Laughlin, who, after the tragic death of her parents, moved with her sister Susan to live with her aunt Ruth Chandler. What could have been a touching story of first love turns into a nightmare when Ruth, gradually going crazy from melancholy and disappointment in life, awakens to bestial cruelty. She plays a sadistic game with the orphans, which soon involves her sons and children from all over the area, and only Davy can stop it. But will he have the courage to go against everyone... and especially against himself? The Girl Next Door is the fourth novel by Jack Ketchum, published in 1989. The work is based on the true story of an American girl, Sylvia Likens, who was tortured to death by Gertrude Baniszewski.