Everyone dies in the end

"At seventeen, Sherman Andrews has been accepted in the Missouri Scholars' Academy. Sherman has had a ten-year plan since he was eight, and he is determined to become an award-winning investigative journalist. He is going places, unlike his low-brow plumber father or his absent mother. While researching his first project, a chance discovery of a mysterious photograph of four men, dated 1935, leads to Sherman uncovering records of deaths, disappearances, and cover-ups on an almost unbelievable scale. The organization responsible is still around, and they're prepared to take drastic measures to keep him quiet"--Back cover.