The letter on the table said: 'You are a miserable old thief! Unless you return her mouth to me by seven o'clock this evening, I will take it away from you by force'. So begins a story in which a young boy must solve the mystery of the stolen mouth and save two men from a duel to the death. This is a tale of friendship between a beguiling boy and an old man with a past — a history that shapes the plot of the book and unfurls in the way real stories do between friends. David and Mr. Rosenthal are generations apart in age but equally brave and each as unique for their years as the other.