Author: John C. Ford
Publisher: Viking
Publication Year: 2009
Most of the readers will be: High school boys.
Reader's Advisory: For another 2009 mystery, try The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.
Summary: Christopher Newell thinks that working at the morgue over the summer will help prepare him for his future career as a spy. He is more right than he could have predicted. One day he sees the medical examiner and the sheriff talking over a dead body. He finds $15,000 in a brief case in the medical examiner's office. Christopher learns from the newspaper the next day that the dead guy is named Mitch Blaylock and his death was ruled a suicide. But when Christopher sneaks a peak at the body himself, he sees that Mitch took several bullets to the chest. In his search to uncover who murdered Mitch Blaylock, and why the murder is being covered up, he teams up with Tina, an attractive journalist. Can Christopher and Tina unravel the mystery without ending up like Mitch?
My favorite passage:
Someone was knocking on my window. Loudly.
It was the insanely hot woman from the Courier, which made me wonder if maybe I was still fantasizing. Or maybe, better, she was stalking me. I rolled down the window to find out.
"You again," she said. "You're popping up all over."
"Yeah, me again. Hi."
"So listen..." She stopped to fish for something in her bag and came up with the memo I had left for Art Bradford, Senior Reporter. Apparently, she had decided to intercept it. Hmm. Her eyes found what she needed and looked back at me. "...Chris. We need to talk."
I almost said something. I make everyone call me Christopher. It fits the savvy NSA operative I hope to be someday. "Chris" feels neutered, like the professors who ride bikes around campus with straps around their pant legs. But something about the woman turned me to jelly, and I made my first-ever exception to the name rule.
"Umm, okay. About what?"
"What do you think? C'mon, we're going to lunch." She walked over to her car, not bothering to check if I was following her. On the way, she pulled out a cell phone and tossed the gum she'd been smacking into some bushes.
The car was a black Trans Am. It had a T-top roof and a gold falcon painted on the hood.
It fit her perfectly. (pg 51-52)
What I really think:
The mystery kept me reading, but there were many other charming elements to this novel. I like that Christopher seems very grown up while he is doing some of his investigating, but he is still a kid when it comes to relationships. The fact that he is spending so much time with an older woman seems weird, but the way they interact with each other is realistic. He has a crush on Tina, but realizes she isn't interested in him. And although he constantly talks about how hot Tina is, he clearly has stronger feelings for his high school crush - a girl he has been too shy to ask out. The book is both fun and well written.
