A debut YA novel tells the story of a quiet Texas community struck by a horrendous crime.
Bobbi Rogers has an idyllic life in Marshall, Texas, in the early 1960s. With her best friends, Katie Baxter and Lawrence “Law” Miller, she has the run of Rusk Street, building forts in the woods and observing the comings and goings of their neighbors. She takes special interest when Lucille Harris moves to town to teach music at the local black college. The young widow “looks like a real movie star,” though her place of employment raises eyebrows among her white neighbors. Bobbi quickly becomes enamored of her, as does Jim Tressell, a gardening enthusiast and husband to a wheelchair-bound wife. Bobbi, age 10, is only beginning to become aware of the bleaker side of life, like the racism felt toward the students of the black college or the “Peepin’ Tom” who was seen peering in through her neighbors’ window. Bobbi’s innocence is shattered for good, however, when Lucille is brutally murdered one night in her kitchen. The citizens of Rusk Street quickly start to speculate who the culprit is and whether Lucille may have brought the tragedy upon herself. Jim is arrested for the crime, but as the trial unfolds, there are more questions unearthed than answers. Bobbi’s quest to discover her friend’s killer will force her to examine the latent darkness at the heart of her beloved Rusk Street. Carlile writes in a colorful prose that deftly evokes the curiosity and naiveté of her narrator: “Daddy said that when people were married for a long time, they started to look alike. I thought that was a funny thing to say, but maybe he was right. Both of the Van Worths had stooped shoulders, gray hair and pinched-in faces.” The community of Rusk Street is skillfully drawn, and the mystery at the center of the novel is compelling and surprising. The book is slightly bloated at 300-plus pages, and the ending is not quite as sharp as it should be. But it still manages to call to mind a certain classic novel about racism and a trial in the Depression-era South.
An ambitious and affecting murder tale.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973939-02-3
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER
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Eleven-year-old Ben has acquired a best friend with a somewhat mysterious past. Although he likes and admires Ring, an unusual boy who quickly shakes up his placid life, Ben realizes that Ring is extremely grudging with details about his history before he and his parents moved to town. Ring, tall and skinny, as opposed to Ben, a self-described runt, is an avid bird watcher, an enthusiastic runner, and has an uncanny ability to charm those around him—both adults and kids. Events inexplicably come to a head when Ben, Ring, and their families spend the afternoon having a picnic on a pretty spot next to the town's river. After lunch, Ring walks to the bank of the river and keeps walking until the water covers his head. Even after a week, Ben refuses to accept what must seem obvious to everyone else—that Ring has drowned. But when Ring's parents disappear, too, Ben suspects that something is up. And when Ben hears a TV news report about a runaway boy who's been spotted hitchhiking on the highway, Ben is sure that Ring is still alive. Although the plot is implausible and many of the secondary characters too deliberately colorful and quirky, Ben is an extremely appealing and engaging narrator. Young readers will identify with him, a much more realistic character than the idealized and overwritten Ring. Certainly not a "must have" for the middle-grade library, but an interesting enough story. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83581-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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The third Kat Colorado novel (Katwalk, Katapult), a contrived affair, replete with Meaningful Chapter Headings, that concerns weepy Paige (formerly Pearl) Morrell, who hires the sardonically edgy Kat to find her unknown mom—her granny, who has just died, brought Paige up and said nary a word. The usual p.i. statistics- dredging discovers granny's twin daughters, Opal and Ruby, one now heading up an Omaha future-trends consultancy and the other squirreled away in a care facility. Are they lying about who's who, and does it relate back to their late teen years and one girl's illicit romance and the other's departure for the East? Paige's fiancÇ, yuppie Paul, nearly kills Kat to get her to drop the investigation, and Derek, the business brains behind the trends company, romances her into virtual slow-wittedness. Two more deaths later, Kat unravels an unsurprising identity switch, turns a goodnight kiss into a shootout, and stares unblinkingly at Paige's crocodile tears. A calculated rendering of p.i. conventions, readable if not particularly original.
Pub Date: March 16, 1992
ISBN: 0-385-42095-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1992
Categories: CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER
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