Captures a time as well as a place: intelligent and thought-provoking.
A literary take on film noir during Hollywood’s golden age.
It’s 1946. While young men were off to war, 17-year-old Clara Berg landed a job as vault runner at major filmmaker Silver Pacific studios. After spending a year taking film reels to and from the locked, fireproof archive, Clara, who loves the film industry, has landed a promotion to apprentice editor. While tidying up after a plan to meet for drinks with her screenwriter and war veteran friend, Gil, falls through, she finds Barbara Bannon, controversial star of the current production, dead in the vault. The next day she learns that it was actually Barbara’s stand-in, Connie Milligan, who was killed. The police believe Bannon was the intended target, but Clara feels otherwise, especially as she begins to remember disturbing fragments from her own childhood in Nazi Germany. Ross’ novel brings working life on a movie set vividly to life. Clara’s investigations rely a bit too much on coincidence, and the final peril ends with a fizzle, but overall, the mystery keeps readers guessing. Side plots involve antisemitism in America and Germany, American isolationism, the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, and Leni Riefenstahl (a woman known as Hitler’s girlfriend and filmmaker who really did travel to California in 1938 in an unsuccessful attempt to sell her works to the American market). All named characters are White.
Captures a time as well as a place: intelligent and thought-provoking. (author's note, glossary, filmography) (Historical mystery. 12-18)Pub Date: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-385-74148-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.
Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.
Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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