This sparkling series starter delivers a confounding mystery, authentic historical details, and a spirited journalist.
A teenage reporter in 1920s Los Angeles investigates the death of a Hollywood director in this YA mystery.
In February 1922, 17-year-old would-be journalist Katharine Ann March gets the scoop on the sudden death by gunshot of famed Paramount Studios movie director William Desmond Taylor. Kate wants to make a name for herself and boost the flagging circulation of her father’s newspaper, and she succeeds on both counts. Often to the annoyance of the Los Angeles Police Department and her longtime friend and neighbor Nicky Masino, a recent LAPD hire, she continues to report the developing story. Lines of investigation include the last person to see Taylor alive; the wife and daughter no one knew the director had; his thieving ex-chauffeur; and more. Kate has a source, too, in her close friend Mary Miles Minter, a 19-year-old film star who had a huge crush on the late-40s Taylor. Kate’s sleuthing takes her and her best friend, Adelaide “Addy” Wells, into the sleaze and glamour of ’20s Hollywood, from speak-easies to a Paramount gala, while dodging suspicious characters—leading to a deadly alleyway encounter that leaves Kate with some explaining to do. Adams, whose previous books include a YA supernatural series, capably turns her hand to historical fiction here. Appropriately for its setting, the series opener has some wonderfully cinematic scenes that vividly evoke Roaring ’20s Hollywood, such as Kate’s flapper makeover and a food fight at the Coconut Grove. Kate is an engaging narrator, boldly wearing trousers and fearlessly poking into various anthills, while unresolved issues from her mother’s abandonment both give her depth and contribute to the story. The mystery itself is complex and satisfyingly resolved.
This sparkling series starter delivers a confounding mystery, authentic historical details, and a spirited journalist.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73713-121-2
Page Count: 410
Publisher: Spyhop Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A gripping tribute to resilience.
A girl with amnesia and a boy suspected of harming his girlfriend overcome adversity to find the answers they seek.
A 17-year-old girl wakes up in a ditch, disoriented and with no memory of who she is or what happened. Found by the Alton, Oregon, police, she is brought to the station. Soon after, Wayne Boone, a man claiming to be her father, shows up. He has photos of her on his phone and her high school ID card, with the name Mary Boone. Wayne convinces the police to release Mary into his custody. The more time Mary spends with Wayne, however, the weirder things get: He’s unaware of her food allergy, and as her memories start to return, they don’t conform with Wayne’s versions of her life. In the town of Washington City, across the Willamette River, Drew is in a bad place. His girlfriend, Lola, has disappeared, and Drew was the last person to see her. His adoptive dads and cousin are the only ones who support him; everyone else, including the sheriff, thinks he’s responsible for Lola’s disappearance. Intent on finding Lola, Drew finds help in an unlikely ally, Lola’s best friend, Autumn, who is the sheriff’s daughter. But will they find Lola in time? The two immersive storylines bring to life the trials and frustrations each main character faces in this debut, which is a thrilling delight right up to the unexpected and bittersweet conclusion. Most characters are cued white; one of Drew’s dads is Guatemalan.
A gripping tribute to resilience. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781728270111
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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