Dead Connection by Charlie Price

Dead Connection is the debut Young Adult fiction novel from Charlie Price. In a blurb on the book jacket the author Christ Crutcher calls Dead Connection witty and humorous or maybe he used the word funny. Witty I agree with but I'm not sure I would use humorous or funny to describe this novel. Considering its subject matter, it's not particularly serious or dark, but I wouldn't call it funny. It is well written, well plotted, and always suspenseful--nail-bitingly so in some parts. Its mystery is twisty and just when you think everything's been figured out, a wrench gets thrown into the works. There is a subtle supernatural element that is integral to the plot that is done well, too. The novel tells its story in rotating third person point of view that helps develop the story from multiple perspectives that serves to heighten the thrilling suspense. Sometimes the device of rotating point of view annoys me because usually just when things really start happening from one point of view is when the action shifts to the next point of view. However, the short chapters in this novel alleviated this annoyance and helped keep the pace moving at a quick clip.

Murray's in high school and he's an outcast without any friends. He spends his free time in the cemetery near his home where his only friends, Dearly and Beloved, 'live.' The quotes are necessary because, well, Murray can talk to the dead and they talk back; they are his only friends. If he concentrates really hard, he can see them, too, in his mind's eye. Recently a new voice has emerged from the ether of the cemetery, and although at first all Murray can discern are garbles and static and fragments of words, he can tell the voice is in distress. Murray is befriended by Pearl, the cemetery caretaker's daughter, who urges him to track down the voice and figure out to whom it belongs. Thus, both Murray and Pearl stumble upon a local mystery that has the town wound tight due to the stagnating investigation that has failed to yield any answers.

Meanwhile, Officer Gates is determined to lay to rest and resolve the investigation of the disappearance of a local teenage girl no matter where it leads or from whom the leads emerge. Robert, a recovering paranoid schizophrenic readjusting to society after committal, struggles to recall some important information he wanted to tell someone. And peace officer Billups, a bitter, nasty man, begins a downward spiral into alcohol addiction that will destroy his life and career and possibly take Murray down with him.

The satisfying ending doesn't wrap everything up too neatly with a bow. In fact, it may just leave a little too much hanging up in the air for some readers, though the reader will be able to guess where the story is headed after the last sentence. In the end Murray has what he's never had before: a family and a friend, both of the living variety, who will support him and stand by him no matter how unbelievable his ability seems to be.

I recommend you check out this read the next time you're at the library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

How To Be A Heroine: Or What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis

I feel as if I could write a book subtitled "What I've Learned From Reading Too Much" except all my lessons would be culled from Greek mythology, the Babysitters' Club, the lives of British queens, crime mysteries, suspense thrillers and celebrity and entertainment gossip. I first ran across How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis in an ad in BookPage. The title sounded intriguing and once I looked it up on Amazon, I was in for reading it. It reminds me of the literacy autobiography writing assignment that I had in one of my English composition classes in college--except this is the literacy autobiography on steroids. The premise of this book is that the author revisits the seminal texts that she read in her youth by examining the lessons and impressions of the novels that she had upon her first readings when she was younger. Ellis has then re-read the novels as an adult specifically for the writing of her own book to see if the novels hold up to her original i

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read. Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one. Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment. The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story. It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve. Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week. This particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and the reader in

The Whisperers by John Connolly

If there was one thing Jimmy didn't care for, it was competition, ... There were some exceptions to that rule: he was rumored to have a sweet deal with the Mexicans, but he wasn't about to try to reason with the Dominicans, or the Columbians, or the bikers, or even the Mohawks. If they wanted to avail themselves of his services, as they sometimes did, that was fine, but if Jimmy Jewel started questioning their right to move product he and Earle would end up tied to chairs in the [bar] with pieces of themselves scattered by their feet, assuming their feet weren't among the scattered pieces, while the bar burned down around their ears, assuming they still had ears. from page 86 The Whisperers is John Connolly's newest Charlie Parker installment in which some beloved characters reappear and in which previous characters from another Parker installment reappear to shed further light on the big baddie that may or may not be coming for Parker in the future. This newest inst

A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Search This Blog