ALL FALL DOWN

A 16-year-old Army brat, unpleasantly in the public eye, copes with grief over her dead mother and fears for her own mental health.

In this new series by the author of the Gallagher Girls books, Grace is sent to live with her grandfather, the United States ambassador to Adria. Trouble-prone Grace causes an international incident on her very first day. Besides, everybody in Adria thinks she's crazy; Grace has spent the last three years insisting she saw her mother murdered by a gruesomely scarred man, though all the evidence says it was an accident. Grace doubts herself when she sees evidence of sinister doings in Adria: conspirators in the palace, secret tunnels and—worst of all—the Scarred Man walking Adria's corridors of power. Though some of the local kids try to help, Grace hates being surrounded by the competent and attractive multinational kids of Embassy Row while she's heavily medicated, prone to self-harm, and too pale and blonde to be pretty. Grace's adventure waffles among spy thriller, an examination of grief and an exploration of mental illness. It rockets wildly to and fro; the setup for the inevitable second volume doesn't follow even slightly naturally from the mystery's conclusion. Still, the mix-and-match bucket of tropes creates a not-entirely-infelicitous goofy whole: Hallucinations, mean girls and kidnappings abound.

Will appeal not only to psychological-thriller fans, but to those who want a little glamour, some A-list social politics and a bit of high school nastiness mixed in with their suspense