Old sins come home to roost in this taut, terrifying psychological thriller, set largely on an isolated Canadian farm. Fourteen-year-old Jim has gotten past more-than-half-serious suicide attempts and an episode of mutism in the wake of his beloved father’s sudden disappearance. But the pain is still sharp enough to leave him vulnerable when tough, wild teenager Ruth Rose suggests a connection between that disappearance and her stepfather, popular local minister Father Fisher. She herself claims to be in danger. According to Fisher, Ruth Rose is mentally and emotionally unbalanced (skittish, violent, and subject to sudden mood swings, she certainly acts the part)—but she plants a seed in Jim that grows into suspicion, as he finds revealing family photos, learns from old newspaper accounts of a fire that claimed a boy’s life, and catches hints of an ugly side to Fisher that his congregation never sees. As Ruth Rose knows and Jim discovers, Fisher makes a scary adversary: brilliant, plausible, utterly ruthless, able to play on Jim’s grief like a musical instrument. As it turns out, Fisher has more than one terrible secret to hide, but the young people here are so overmatched that the tale loses some credibility when he allows himself to be caught in a conventional climactic standoff with police. That bit of contrivance aside, Wynne-Jones (Stephen Fair, 1998) weaves a strong, sensitively observed cast, plus themes of inner conflict, unlikely friendships, and the enduring power of hate, into a powerful tale that will grip readers from start to finish. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-30930-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
PERSPECTIVES
A high-intensity tale shot through with spectacular magic battles, savage mayhem, cool outfits, monsters, hidden doors, over-the-top names, narrow escapes, evil schemes and behavior heroic, ambiguous and really, really bad. When the murder of a favorite uncle touches off a frantic search for a fabled superweapon known as the Scepter of the Ancients, 12-year-old Stephanie is abruptly pitched out of her mundane life. She hooks up with Skulduggery Pleasant—a walking, wisecracking, nattily dressed, fire-throwing skeleton detective—and similar unlikely allies to fight a genially sadistic sorcerer out to conquer the world and to bring back the bad old gods. It’s a great recipe for a page-turner, and though Landy takes a chapter or two to get up to full speed, the plot thereafter accelerates as smoothly as Pleasant’s classic Bentley toward a violent, seesaw climax. Earning plenty of style points for hardboiled dialogue and very scary baddies, the author gives his wonderfully tough, sassy youngster a real workout, and readers, particularly Artemis Fowl fans, will be skipping meals and sleep to get to the end. Expect sequels. (Fantasy. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 3, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-123115-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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