ANGEL'S GATE

Crew (No Such Country, 1994, etc.) jumps right into the action as a doctor's son watches the police usher a captured ``wild child'' into his father's office. Then the author retreats to fill in the background, and readers come to know both narrator Kimmy, 12, a sheltered, artistic, somewhat fearful child and his sister, Julia, a free spirit who can lie her way into or out of anything. As different as Kimmy and Julia are, they are united against their well-meaning but overprotective parents. Kimmy gains the terrified wild girl's trust; her father is a backwards gold digger found murdered in the bush. Kimmy bravely defends her and her brother when their lives are threatened. There's plenty of suspense right up to the surprising conclusion; the characters are real people who fully inhabit this rich, multilayered novel: It's part mystery, part coming-of-age, part commentary on modern society. Riveting. (Fiction. 11-14)