November, 1953. The brutal murder of Maria Gordon, a young mother, stuns a small, New Jersey town. The case quickly goes cold in a bizarre twist of fate that leaves seven-year old Johnny an orphan -- that is, until the surprise arrival of a man long assumed dead. The case is pursued by three unlikely allies: a wise-cracking police sergeant, a German rocket scientist, and a frail, yet optimistic survivor of the Holocaust. Together, they uncover shocking evidence linking Maria's murder to Nazi war crimes a decade earlier. Rocket Lake tells of blackmail and government cover-ups during the postwar Space race between the U.S. and Russia. As the story unfolds, scenes of 1950's American culture are revealed, seen through the eyes of a young boy, his schoolmates, and survivors of a war-ravaged Europe.