The Lovely Bones

In 1973, 14 year-old Susie Salmon takes her usual short-cut home from school, through a cornfield in Norristown, Pennsylvania. It just so happens that George Harvey, a 36 year-old neighbour, of which lives alone and builds dolls houses for a living, persuades her to have a look at an underground den he has recently dug in the cornfield. Once she enters, he rapes and murders her, followed by dismembering her body and putting the remains in a safe that he dumps in a sink-hole. Susie's spirit flees towards her personal heaven.

Susie's family refuse to believe that she is dead, until her elbow is found by a neighbours dog. The police question Mr. Harvey and find him strange but with no reason to be a suspect. 

Later on, the detective assigned to the case has to drop the news to the Salmon family that the police have exhausted all leads and they are ending the investigation. Susie's sister Lindsey has been suspicious of Mr. Harvey all along and on a desperate attempt to prove his guilty conscience she breaks into his house to look for evidence. She finds a diagram of the underground den, but just as she starts to get somewhere she is forced to leave as she hears Mr. Harvey returning. Although Lindsey's shocking discovery, the police do not arrest him, leaving him to flee from Norristown.   

Evidence is later discovered that links him to Susie's murder, as well as several other girls. Meanwhile in heaven, Susie meets the other innocent victims and sees Mr. Harvey's traumatic childhood.

Susie's mother, Abigail can't deal with everything that has happened and leaves Susie's father Jack. She moves away and takes a job at a winery in California. Eight years later Lindsey and her boyfriend, Sam decide to get engaged after finishing college and move in together- They find an old lodge in an abandoned woods and decide to fix it up. After the celebrations are over Jack and Susie's beloved brother, Buckley have an argument which causes Jack to suffer a heart attack. The news reaches California and prompts Abigail to return, but the reunion is tempered with bitterness towards her from Buckley because of her leaving them for most of his childhood.

As this is going on, Mr. Harvey returns to Norristown, which is more developed- and goes back to explore his old neighbourhood. 

Eventually, after many events that Susie has watched over, and been a part of- She moves to a larger part of heaven. Lindsey and Sam go on to have a daughter named, Abigail Suzanne. While stalking a girl in New Hampshire, Mr. Harvey is hit on the shoulder by an icicle and plunges to his death down a steep, snow-covered cliff, and gets what he deserves. A nice couple from Norristown find Susie's charm bracelet, without knowing the significance of it.

At the end of the Story, Susie closes it up by wishing the reader ''a long and happy life''.