Light from a distant star a novel

Summary: This is the moving and powerful story of innocence and betrayal told in the endearingly wise voice of thirteen-year-old Nellie Peck. It is early summer, and her beloved father's business is failing. Forced to take care of her shy younger brother, Nellie is determined to make him--and herself--toughen up. Three strangers enter Nellie's protected life: mysterious and brutish Max Devaney works in her grandfather's junkyard, the thieving Bucky Saltonstall has just arrived from New York City, and Dolly Bedelia, a young stripper who rents the small apartment in the back of the Pecks' house, becomes the titillating focus of Nellie's eavesdropping. Nellie is justly proud of her own infallible lie detector until violence erupts in her young life and she is silenced by fear and scandal. The truth as she believes it is shocking and unthinkable, and with everyone's eyes riveted on her in the courtroom, Nellie finds herself compromised by moral confusion. No one will listen, no one believes her, and a man's life hangs in the balance.