Paced like a television police procedural, with flashes of epiphany, false leads, and race-against-time dangers, this...
Sherlock Holmes, if Holmes were a biracial, at-risk, 16-year-old slacker—a genius stoner who consorts with burglars and homeless dropouts.
Garvie is many things: a math whiz and certified genius with a photographic memory; a layabout who rarely goes to class; a smartarse; "a rational thinker, precise and unsentimental." His friends call him Sherlock and Puzzle Boy. He's also the ex-boyfriend of Chloe Dow, a violet-eyed, busty, charismatic, unpopular—and now dead—blonde white girl. Chloe's murder knocks Garvie out of his bored semistupor. Despite his mother's threats to move the family to her native Barbados, Garvie throws himself into the investigation with all his reckless brilliance. Detective Inspector Singh, the Sikh police officer investigating Chloe's murder, is torn between exasperation and reluctant gratitude for the boy's Holmes-ian deductions. Garvie ponders seemingly unrelated clues—a black Porsche, a shopping list, ugly lime-green–and-orange running shoes—and puts together a disturbing story of victimization. Girls and women in Garvie's world seem mostly to be ineffectual, oversexed, or victims of violent and sexually predatory men. Meanwhile, though Garvie himself is a welcome mixed-race detective, several of the other characters are drawn with stale, albeit affectionate stereotypes.
Paced like a television police procedural, with flashes of epiphany, false leads, and race-against-time dangers, this satisfying whodunit overcomes its characterization shortcomings. (Mystery. 13-15)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-338-03642-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: David Fickling/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
A solid cast and heartfelt emotions lift this above its contrivances
"Dad thinks if you have a kid, you should pay child support. Paying for them is the law, but spending time with them isn't."
That's what aspiring journalist Ricki writes her first day riding shotgun with her bounty-hunter father. It's the first time in her life she's spent appreciable time with him, so she writes from the heart. They are only together because her feckless mother has taken off—again—and her grandmother got tired of putting her up. She used to tell herself stories of the exciting life her father led, inventing a mythology to explain his absence, but it turns out, he's just been a jerk. Bail-bond enforcement is a lot duller than reality TV suggests, but the adrenaline starts flowing when Ricki strikes up a conversation with "skip" Ian, who has jumped bail on a grand theft auto count. In seemingly no time, the charismatic teen has slipped his cuffs and stolen Ricki's dad's truck. The ensuing caper is a gentle one, a road trip calculated to give Ricki time to get to know her dad and achieve an understanding of herself and her family. She is an appealingly vulnerable character, her anger at both parents and her love for her mother both genuine and leading to completely believable choices, however wrongheaded.
A solid cast and heartfelt emotions lift this above its contrivances . (Fiction. 13-15)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9391-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For readers who want cinematic action and excitement without the fuss of character development
A teen with a year to live is recruited into an elite team of dying 19-year-old spies.
Cam Cody is a soccer star finishing up his senior year of high school when he’s diagnosed with a rare kind of brain tumor by a secretive traveling doctor. Though he feels perfectly healthy, his despair is overwhelming. When a mysterious man offers him a job as a one-year spy kid, the choice seems obvious: Let the creepy spies fake his premature death and spirit him off to the opportunity of, well, a lifetime. On a beach surrounded by cliffs and jungle, Cam meets the nine other members of his team, all as distinctive as if they were the cast of a miniseries. There’s the genius, the musician, the big lunkhead and “the hot gal” (also known as “Obviously female,” “a goddamned beer commercial. James Bond with boobs,” and “definitely not repressed”). All Cam’s teammates take the drug TS-9, which enhances their speed, strength and smarts, but Cam’s been assured he doesn’t need the drug yet. The team’s spy training is brutal, but their missions are rewarding, such as rescuing kidnapped humanitarian-aid doctors from pirates. They are humanitarian-aid doctors, right? Team members keep getting killed—sometimes under very suspicious circumstances—but they all have only a year to live, after all. Solving the mystery with only the most heavily foreshadowed characters left alive leads to a shoehorned lead-in for the next volume.
For readers who want cinematic action and excitement without the fuss of character development . (Action. 13-15)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01155-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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