GUILT TRIP

by Stephen Schwandt ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1990

An elaborate, chilling story in which a teen-ager nearly becomes fall guy for an unbalanced killer. Entering Minneapolis' Nicollet High, his fifth school in three years, Edrich (Eddie) Lymurek is thinking about keeping his nose clean--for a change. He's happy, if a bit puzzled, when Angela Favor, a beautiful and talented member of the amateur New Energy Theater Troupe, takes an interest in him, claiming to remember him from the time he'd failed an audition. Then the corpse of Corey Howe-Browne, NETT's director, is dragged from the lake. Eddie's double connection with NETT puts him fight in the path of the ensuing homicide investigation, and he realizes that Angela has carefully, craftily; set him up. She cheerfully admits this to him; Howe-Browne had recently been convicted of molesting the boys under his tutelage, but she engineered his death because he hadn't paid enough attention to her. Eddie may be no match for her, but police detective Robert Crenshaw is: bit by bit, Crenshaw assembles the true story, then organizes a deliberately theatrical confrontation. Her real motive? The author repeatedly levels the finger of blame at parents: Angela's rage springs from her busy father's neglect; Eddie has been thrown out several times by his hard-drinking father; and other characters suffer similarly--a psychologist here says, ""When you find a young person angry enough to kill somebody, you don't have to look at him--or her--very long before you see Mom or Dad staring back at you."" Schwandt raises this above another ""kids vs. the grown-ups"" story by supplying a pair of strong, positive adults: Crenshaw, and Eddie's wise Aunt Cynthia. And in a sense this has a happy ending: Angela is left receiving treatment, while Eddie takes a new grip on his life. Simplistic? Perhaps, but well-wrought.

Pub Date: March 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: CHILDREN'S