The Deep End of the Ocean is a emotional novel about the hardships of losing a child. Beth Cappadora is a middle aged woman with a husband and three children: Vincent 6, Ben 3 and Kerry the baby. Beth loses Ben the sunny center of her blissfully normal life at her 15th high school reunion at The Tremont Hotel in Chicago. She goes to the counter to pay for the room and leaves Kerry with her best friend Ellen while her cousin Jill parks the car. She leaves Vincent to watch Ben on the luggage trolley. In the time it takes to sign her name and turn around Ben disappears out of her's and Vincent's sight.Over the next month all of her friends and the police hold searches to find Ben but all come up empty handed. Beth then decides to go back home. When shes at home her husband Pat literally has to drag her out of bed in the morning and Vincent has to take care of Kerry. Pat has a heart attack and Beth ends up cheating on Pat with her first love Nick Palidino. They decide to then move to Chicago so that Pat can open up a resturant out there. One day a boy named Sam Karras comes to mow the lawn. Beth notices he looks like the aged picture of what Ben woudl look like so she takes pictures and gives it to the detective that was assigned to the case. It turns out to be Ben. He gets brought home to live with the Cappadora's and Vincent turns in a troubled teen who ends up getting drunk and crashing a car. He goes to Juvenile Hall and Sam comes to visit him and they talk.