THICKER THAN WATER

In a subtle exploration of loss, grief, and family ties, Farmer (Charlotte Sometimes, 1969, etc.) incorporates an uneasy ghost yearning for decent burial into an orphaned boy's difficulties adapting to a new home. Becky learns of her mother's twin sister only as Megan is dying of an overdose, leaving a son, Will, Becky's age—a slim, dark boy who has lived in foster care since being abused by one of Megan's boyfriends, and who's never known a father. After coming from London to Becky's family in Derbyshire, Will hears urgent pleas in the night: ``Help me!'' The cries are audible to no one else, though the whole family is troubled by other manifestations—mysterious vandalism, unlocked doors, a Christmas tree that withers overnight. In alternating narratives, Will and Becky reveal a mutual dislike gradually transformed into familial amity seasoned with comfortable bickering; meanwhile, they deduce that the ghost was a laborer- -like Will a neglected child—trapped in a nearby mine. Driven by his own troubled past and the ghost's demands, blamed for his moody unpredictability as well as the ghost's misdeeds, Will decides on a desperately perilous way to free them both. Deftly individualizing even her minor players, Farmer crafts the family dynamics—the competitive twins, the newly acquainted cousins, the contrasting relationships between parents and children—with leisurely care, building toward a splendidly dramatic denouement. Unusually rich and involving. (Fiction. 10-15)