DIAMONDS IN THE SHADOW

Another teeth-clenching thriller from Cooney, this one with a social conscience. A middle-class family in Connecticut agrees through their church to shelter an African refugee family, never noticing abundant clues that the Amabos aren’t a real family and that they have a dangerous past that has followed them from Africa. Cooney builds suspense by telling readers more than the almost incredibly naïve Finch family knows, setting up plot points wherein they’ll know just what’s going to happen, and then fooling them. She highlights the horrible conditions that have forced the decent Amabos to become less than honest as the looming danger of the real villain, on his way to collecting uncut diamonds the Amabos have smuggled into the country, moves the story forward. Affections, loyalties and a basic Christian message of love and redemption emerge as Cooney tempers her readers’ anxiety with a measure of understanding while building to her climactic showdown. (author’s note) (Fiction. YA)