A quick, thrilling read that doesn’t skimp on characterization.
In a fast-moving and well-constructed mystery, three teen volunteer members of a search-and-rescue team track a serial killer targeting homeless teen girls in Portland, Oregon.
An experienced SAR member is supposed to accompany every search party, but an error lands new volunteers Ruby, Nick and Alexis alone together on their first call. Other team members quickly locate the man who is the target of their search, but the three teens find something else: the body of a recently dead girl. Each teen comes from a unique and compellingly drawn background, expressed with impressive effectiveness given how quickly the plot moves. Nick, whose father died in the Iraq War, has joined SAR in hopes of both living up to his father’s legacy and impressing girls. Timid but capable Alexis pushes others away to stop them from discovering that she spends most of her time and energy managing her mother’s mental illness. Ruby in particular stands out. Her socially unacceptable but genuinely felt exuberance at participating in a murder investigation is frowned upon by parents and police but lovingly conveyed through enthusiastic dialogue and narrative asides. Short, obsessive chapters from the unidentified killer’s point of view add to the suspense, and enough clues are dropped as to the killer’s identity that astute readers will be able to solve the puzzle before the final, high-stakes climax.
A quick, thrilling read that doesn’t skimp on characterization. (Mystery. 12-18)Pub Date: June 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9852-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
This tale moves beyond the boom-bang, boring theology of so many fantasies—and, in the process, creates, almost griotlike, a...
Taj, the black teenage narrator of Onyebuchi’s debut, is an aki, or sin-eater—meaning that he literally consumes the exorcised transgressions of others, usually in the forms of inky-colored animal-shaped phantasms called inisisas that reappear as black tattoos on the akis’ “red skin, brown skin.”
This really isn’t his most remarkable trait, however, even as he ingests greater and greater sins of the Kaya, the brown-skinned royal family ruling the land of Kos. What makes Taj extraordinary is the tensions he holds: his blasé awareness of his exalted status as the best aki, even as the townspeople both shun yet exploit him and his chosen family of sin-eaters; his adolescent swagger coupled with the big-brotherly protectiveness he has for the crew of akis and, as the story proceeds, his increasing responsibility to train them; his natural skepticism of the theology that guides Kos even as he performs the very act that allows the theology—and Kos itself—to exist. He must navigate these in the midst of a political plot, a burgeoning star-crossed love, and forgiveness for the sins he does not commit. “Epic” is an overused term to describe how magnificent someone or something is. Author Onyebuchi’s novel creates his in the good old-fashioned way: the slow, loving construction of the mundane and the miraculous, building a world that is both completely new and instantly recognizable.
This tale moves beyond the boom-bang, boring theology of so many fantasies—and, in the process, creates, almost griotlike, a paean to an emerging black legend . (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-448-49390-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
A deftly balanced mix of history, intrigue, and romance.
Against the backdrop of World War II, four young women codebreakers put their minds together to find a serial killer.
It’s early 1943, and Arlington Hall, a one-time girls’ school in Virginia, is now the site of a covert intelligence facility where an 18-year-old former maid secretly assumes the new identity Kit Sutherland and becomes a codebreaker. A night out turns deadly when one of their own is murdered, and Kit stumbles across her body in the bathroom. Kit, roommate Dottie, and Moya, the supervisor of their floor, work alongside Violet, one of the Black girls from the segregated codebreaking unit, to bring the culprit to justice. As the budding friends turn their sharp minds and analytical abilities to covertly investigating what turns out to be a series of murders, Kit struggles to keep her own dangerous secret—and her attraction to Moya—under wraps. Meanwhile, Moya will do everything in her power to help her girls while trying not to fall in love with Kit. The novel deftly addresses questions of inequality across class, race, and sexuality in a story that combines well-researched historical background with a nifty whodunit, a strong focus on friendship, and an empowering queer romance. The narrative follows Kit and Moya, making them the better developed characters in the largely White cast. An author’s note includes many resources about the real women whose behind-the-scenes espionage work informed this story.
A deftly balanced mix of history, intrigue, and romance. (Historical thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-33958-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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