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The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry

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I wasn’t hugely impressed by April Henry’s The Night She Disappeared, though I could see its appeal for other readers. The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die is a bit of a step up for me – it’s a little more suspenseful, a little more of a genuine mystery, and feels a little more substantial.

Our initially-unnamed protagonist wakes up in an isolated cabin with no memory of who or where she is. (Yes, it’s one of those stories.) What she does know is that there are two men who are deciding whether they should kill her. She’s tied to a chair. Her hands are in pain and she realizes her fingernails have been pulled out.

The argument between the two men ends: she is to die. The girl is dragged outside the cabin by one of them, but due to some quick thinking and sheer luck, she’s able to knock him out and get away. She runs. She doesn’t know where to go; she doesn’t even know her own name.  

As in The Night She Disappeared, there’s a skater boy who believes her wild story and decides to help her out. The two hunt down clues even as the murderers hunt them down, and it makes for quite a suspenseful ride.

The amnesia is a cheat, though. There’s no real mystery beyond what is locked in the girl’s mind, and when her memories all come rushing back at the end – as you knew they would – all is revealed. It’s not my favorite kind of mystery. It feels cheap, like all of the hunting for clues I did as a reader alongside the protagonist during the bulk of the book was pointless.

Still, it’s a fun, fast-paced read, and the amnesia aspect didn’t ruin it for me. When the memories do come back, at least they’re mildly surprising and overall fairly interesting. I appreciated that the details of the story weren’t pedestrian as I found those in the The Night She Disappeared to be. Here, we get conspiracies and biological warfare alongside your usual murder and kidnapping.

April Henry’s books remind me of 21st-century versions of Joan Lowery Nixon’s mysteries, which I loved as an early teen. Both authors’ books tended to feature girls caught in bad (usually violent) situations who rely on their own quick thinking in order to unravel the mystery. There’s usually some double-crossing and a few red herrings, but the stories are never long and they’re always suspenseful and quick reads.

Review copy received from the publisher. The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die will be published June 11.

Get Genrefied: Mysteries (+ Thrillers)

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Angela’s reader’s advisory challenge this month focuses on mysteries, and we’ve thrown in thrillers as well, since the two are often found together. But they’re not quite the same. Wes Miller at Mulholland Books breaks down the two here, and it’s a good summary of what mysteries and thrillers have in common and how they differ. Kimberly’s basic rule is this: if there’s a solution at the end, it’s a mystery. If not, it’s a thriller. Many books are both, but not all, and there’s certainly a lot of crossover appeal between the two.

Because of their nature, mysteries can have a lot of genre crossover: historical mysteries (YS Lee’s The Agency series, Kathryn Miller Haines’ The Girl is Murder series); paranormal (Kim Harrington’s Clarity series, plus lots of ghost stories); science fiction (especially with technology, such as Michelle Gagnon’s Don’t Turn Around); humor (Heist Society, Marlene Perez).

Mysteries are also heavy on series, and they lend themselves well to the form. They provide an easy way to build long character arcs over many books while also telling a complete story in one volume. There’s plenty of crossover between teen and adult mysteries as well, particularly with the cozies, which tend to be cleaner and less gruesome. (As any librarian who serves adults knows, mysteries are HUGE in the adult market.) The Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley is a great example of an adult series with teen crossover appeal.

Below is a list of recently-published YA novels that can all be classified as mysteries or thrillers. It really shows just how broad this category can be – historical, contemporary, paranormal, horror, literary. All descriptions come from either WorldCat or Goodreads. If you know of any more notable titles, please leave us a comment!

Heist Society by Ally Carter (sequels: Uncommon Criminals, Perfect Scoundrels): A group of teenagers uses their combined talents to re-steal several
priceless paintings and save fifteen-year-old Kat Bishop’s father,
himself an international art thief, from a vengeful collector. Kimberly’s reviews

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield: Unveils the details of a horrific murder, its effects on permanent and
summer residents of the small Appalachian town where the body is
discovered, and especially how the related violence shakes
eighteen-year-old Becca’s determination to leave home as soon as
possible. Kelly’s review

All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab: After the death of his ex-girlfriend Carly, Northern California high
school student Neily joins forces with Carly’s cousin Audrey to try to
solve her murder.
 

 
Deadly Cool by Gemma Halliday (sequel: Social Suicide): When sixteen-year-old Hartley Featherstone finds out that her boyfriend
is cheating on her, she goes to his house to confront him and suddenly
finds herself embroiled in a murder mystery. Kelly’s review

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga (sequel: Game): Seventeen-year-old Jazz learned all about being a serial killer from his
notorious “Dear Old Dad,” but believes he has a conscience that will
help fight his own urges and right some of his father’s wrongs, so he
secretly helps the police apprehend the town’s newest murderer, “The
Impressionist.” Kimberly’s review

Clarity by Kim Harrington (sequel: Perception): Sixteen-year-old Clare Fern, a member of a family of psychics, helps the
mayor and a skeptical detective solve a murder in a Cape Cod town
during the height of tourist season–with her brother a prime suspect. Kimberly’s review

The Dead and Buried by Kim Harrington: New student Jade uncovers a murder mystery when she moves into a house
haunted by the ghost of a beautiful, mean girl who ruled Jade’s high
school.

The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison: Having experienced compulsive behavior all her life, Lo’s symptoms are
getting her into trouble when she witnesses a murder while wandering
dangerous quarters of Cleveland, Ohio, collecting things that do not
belong to her, obsessing about her brother’s death.

Notes From Ghost Town by Kate Ellison: Young artist Olivia Tithe struggles to keep her sanity as she unravels
the mystery of her first love’s death through his ghostly visits.

 
The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting (sequels: Desires of the Dead, The Last Echo, Dead Silence): High school junior Violet uses her uncanny ability to sense murderers
and their victims to try to stop a serial killer who is terrorizing her
town, and although her best friend and would-be boyfriend Jay promises
to keep her safe, she becomes a target.

The Space Between Trees by Katie Williams: When the body of a classmate is discovered in the woods,
sixteen-year-old Evie’s lies wind up involving her with the girl’s best
friend, trying to track down the killer.

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry: Told from various viewpoints, Gabie and Drew set out to prove that their
missing co-worker Kayla is not dead, and to find her before she is,
while the police search for her body and the man who abducted her. Kimberly’s review

Shelter by Harlan Coben (sequel: Seconds Away): After tragic events tear Mickey Bolitar away from his parents, he is
forced to live with his estranged Uncle Myron and switch high schools,
where he finds both friends and enemies, but when his new new
girlfriend, Ashley, vanishes, he follows her trail into a seedy
underworld that reveals she is not what she seems to be. Kimberly’s review

Crusher by Niall Leonard: After he discovers his father murdered, Finn, now the prime suspect,
scours the London underworld, exposing secrets and facing danger, to
determine the true killer. Kimberly’s review

A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee (sequels: The Body at the Tower, The Traitor in the Tunnel): Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary
Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls where she
is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The
Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant’s home in
hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships. Kimberly’s review

Don’t Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon: After waking up on an operating table with no memory of how she got
there, Noa must team up with computer hacker Peter to stop a corrupt
corporation with a deadly secret. Kimberly’s review

The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines (sequel: The Girl is Trouble): In 1942 New York City, fifteen-year-old Iris grieves for her mother
who committed suicide and for the loss of her life of privilege, and
secretly helps her father with his detective business since he, having
lost a leg at Pearl Harbor, struggles to make ends meet. Kimberly’s review

Kill You Last by Todd Strasser: When three teenage clients of her fashion photographer dad go
missing, Shelby’s near perfect life crumbles when her dad is named a
prime suspect in the girls’ disappearance. Kimberly’s review

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore: Seventeen-year-old Amy Goodnight has long been the one who makes her
family of witches seem somewhat normal to others, but while spending a
summer with her sister caring for their aunt’s farm, Amy becomes the
center of weirdness when she becomes tied to a powerful ghost. Kimberly’s review

Escape Theory by Margaux Froley: Bound by her oath of confidentiality and tortured by unrequited love,
sixteen-year-old Devon, a peer counselor at a prestigious California
boarding school, finds herself on a solitary mission to get to the
bottom of a popular student’s apparent suicide.

Be sure to also check out Kelly’s guide to YA mysteries and thrillers on Scribd, in handy printable brochure form.

Here are a few forthcoming titles to look out for later this year.

Spies and Prejudice by Talia Vance: Berry Fields’s life working for her dad’s investigation firm and
searching for clues to her mother’s death unravels when gorgeous Tanner
arrives in town and changes everything.

The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman: After a series of suicide-killings and a deadly storm, the residents of
the town of Oleander, Kansas, start acting even more strangely than
would be expected. Only the 5 witnesses of the murders retain their
sound minds, and must band together to save the town from whatever has
come over it

Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas: It’s Spring Break of
senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few
other close friends are off to a debaucherous trip to Aruba that
promises to be the time of their lives. But when Elise is found
brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own,
fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations. As Anna sets out to
find her friend’s killer, she discovers harsh revelations about her
friendships, the slippery nature of truth, and the ache of young love.

Absent by Katie Williams: Seventeen-year-old Paige Wheeler died in a fall off the high school
roof and now her spirit seems bound to the school grounds, along with
Brooke and Evan, two other teen ghosts who died there–but maybe if she
can solve the mystery of her apparent suicide they will all be able to
move on.

Truth or Dare by Jacqueline Green: In the affluent seaside town of Echo Bay, Massachusetts, mysterious
dares sent to three very different girls–loner Sydney Morgan, Caitlin
“Angel” Thomas, and beautiful Tenley Reed–threaten both their
reputations and their lives.

Strangelets by Michelle Gagnon: Forcibly sucked into an abyss at the moment of their deaths, six
smarter-than-most teenagers wake up in a deadly, desolate future world,
where only one of them holds the key to getting everyone back home.

The Sweet Dead Life by Joy Preble: After dying in a car accident, fourteen-year-old Jenna’s older brother
returns as an angel to help Jenna solve a mystery that not only holds
the key to her survival, but also to their mother’s mysterious
depression and their father’s disappearance.

The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry: When Cady wakes up, she
has no memory of who she is. All she knows is that there is a pillowcase
over her head and a person in the room has instructed another to “take
her out back and finish her off.” Cady must find a way to save herself.
But how can she do this when she doesn’t even know her name?

Like other genres we’ve focused on, there are many resources to turn to broaden your knowledge.

  • The Edgar Awards (given by the Mystery Writers of America) and the Agatha Awards are probably the two most well-known awards given to mystery novels, and they both feature young adult titles. The Edgar Awards guidelines are fairly broad, honoring books that are classified as mystery, crime, suspense, or intrigue. The Agatha Awards are noteworthy because they honor titles that are what they call “traditional mysteries” in the vein of Agatha Christie. To them, this means closed mysteries with no gratuitous sex, violence, or gore. This might make some of the adult titles honored suitable for younger readers as well.
  • The Crime Writers Association gives the Dagger Awards for crime writing. These aren’t necessarily mysteries, but many are, and most can at least be classified as thrillers. They do not give out an award for YA or children’s books, though some titles with crossover appeal have been honored (such as Alan Bradley in 2007).
  • I’m going to plug Fantastic Fiction again, since there are so many mystery series and this is the best resource I know of for keeping track of them accurately.
  • Generally speaking, all publishing houses publish mysteries and thrillers, though there are some imprints that specialize. Soho Teen, a newly launched imprint of independent publishing house Soho Press, is one of these, focusing on mysteries and thrillers for young adults. 
  • Sleuths, Spies, and Alibis is a new-to-us blog resource run by thirteen middle grade and YA authors who have books out in 2012 or 2013. 

Nobody’s Secret by Michaela MacColl

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I thought Michaela MacColl’s debut book, Prisoners in the Palace, was a great read. I loved learning about the young Queen Victoria, and the palace intrigue she concocted (based on true events!) was fascinating and fun.
MacColl takes a bit of a different tack with Nobody’s Secret, though it’s still historical YA. This time, her protagonist is Emily Dickinson, and her setting is Amherst, Massachusetts. Fifteen year old Emily is laying out in the field by her home, trying to coax a bee to land on her nose, when she notices that she’s being observed by a young man. They strike up a conversation (a bit of a flirtation, really), but he leaves before she can learn his true name. Instead, she knows him simply as Mr. Nobody, as he introduced himself to her.
This is a terrific meet-cute, but if you’ve read the back cover, you know this is no romantic comedy. Not long after Emily’s meeting with Mr. Nobody, he’s found dead, face-down in a pond on the Dickinson property. The constable and the coroner and everyone else officially involved with the investigation all want to write it off as an accidental drowning, but Emily knows something is off. She’s determined to learn the truth and get justice for her friend.
Famous historical figures solving crimes are all the rage in the adult fiction world, and have been for a while. I don’t know of as many in the YA world, but I admit I do rather like the gimmick, particularly if the person in question is one that already interests me. Emily Dickinson, though, has never held barrels of fascination for me. The poets I like are few and far between, and Miss Dickinson is not one of them. Still, I always enjoy a good historical mystery, particularly when it’s headed by an independent young teenager.
Alas, the mystery itself is not a terribly good one. It’s pretty pedestrian, actually, with a rather small roster of suspects and zero red herrings (meaning there’s no real chance for the reader to guess wrong). So as a whodunnit, it’s not particularly satisfying. As a character study, though, it’s more successful. Through MacColl’s story, we learn about Emily’s life: she was consumptive, she hated doing the baking and washing (which took ages), her mother was frugal to a fault, she had a fascination with bees, and so on. As she is mostly known for two things – her poetry and her seclusion – all these details are a welcome insight into her character. 
As to the central conceit – Emily Dickinson as amateur sleuth – it makes sense that Emily would be one to investigate a murder that everyone else considered closed, given her reputation for oddness.
If you’re looking for a good mystery, I’d probably give this a pass, but for readers interested in Emily Dickinson and her poetry, this would certainly be of interest. Each chapter is titled with a couple lines of her poems, and the way MacColl threads the “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” poem throughout the novel – title included – is clever. For many, Dickinson’s poetry is accessible and understandable where others’ is dense and confusing, so I can certainly see this circulating among her fans.
Review copy received from the publisher. Nobody’s Secret will be available March 1.

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry

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A book like April Henry’s The Night She Disappeared is great at crystallizing my reading tastes. It’s good for what it is – but that “what it is” is not really to my taste. I’ll have to get spoilery to fully explain, but I’ll warn you ahead of time so you can avoid the spoilers if you like.

Kayla, a pizza delivery girl for Pete’s Pizza, has been abducted while on what seemed to be a routine delivery. It turns out the address to which she was supposed to deliver was fake, and the man who called in the order gave a fake name, too. 
This is horrifying for the entire town and for Kayla’s co-workers, but it’s particularly horrifying for Gabie, who also works at the pizza place. You see, the man who called in the fake order asked if the girl who drove the mini cooper was working that day – and Gabie is that girl. It was bad luck for Kayla that she had swapped shifts with Gabie for that day, otherwise Gabie may have been the missing girl, and not Kayla. 
This thought haunts Gabie, and she’s determined to help find Kayla before the abductor realizes the mistake he’s made and comes after her, too. She recruits co-worker and possible love interest Drew to assist.
Perspectives switch frequently. We get bits and pieces of the story from Kayla, the kidnapper, and a couple of teenagers who stumble upon some evidence, but the reader is mostly taken through the story via Gabie’s and Drew’s eyes. Gabie and Drew are our amateur sleuths, particularly Gabie, who persists in believing that Kayla is still alive despite the detectives’ insistence otherwise. Naturally, they find themselves in trouble, coming face to face with the culprit at the end of the book.
And here’s where things get spoilery. You’ve been warned.
I would classify this as a thriller much more than a mystery, since there really isn’t much mystery as to who took Kayla. It’s not someone we’ve met in the story; it’s just a random guy who frequented the pizza place. There is no pool of suspects, no hidden identities, no big reveal at the end. The tension in the story comes from wondering whether Kayla, Gabie, and Drew will reach the end of the book alive, not in determining whodunnit. (And it’s not exactly a spoiler to say that they all survive.)
While this is fine for many readers, it’s not what I like in a story. For me, the fun in a mystery comes from trying to figure out the culprit of some crime before the sleuths do, from being surprised or proven right at the end. So this was a disappointing read for me. And I saw it coming, too: Henry reveals a lot about the culprit in his perspective’s chapters, and it rules out anyone else in the story. Still, I kept reading, hoping she’d pull the rug out from under me and truly surprise me. Alas, it didn’t happen.
But for readers who don’t crave the whodunnit aspect, who instead enjoy the thrill of the chase, this may be right up their alley. Henry creates a good amount of suspense, and there’s not a lot of time to get bored: chapters are short, perspectives switch frequently, and she includes a piece of “evidence” every few chapters (police reports, newspaper articles, tv talk show transcripts), which is a nice touch. I just wish there was more of an element of, well, mystery to the story.
Book borrowed from my local library.

Audio Review: The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall

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Seventeen year old Hope Long’s older brother, Jeremy, has been accused of murdering their town’s beloved high school baseball coach, Coach Johnson. Hope knows he is innocent, but all the circumstantial evidence points to him and no one else. What’s really damning Jeremy, though, is that he hasn’t spoken a word in over a decade, and so cannot speak in his defense. Aside from his selective mutism, Jeremy is different in other ways, too: he collects empty jars, sometimes empyting their contents out onto the floor if they’re full and he feels he needs them; he carries his baseball bat wherever he goes; one time while waiting in line at a soup kitchen he gave away all his food to other people in the room and then proceeded to give away everything else he had on him, right down to his socks and shoes, too; and so on.

Readers may guess that Jeremy is autistic, but it’s never explicitly stated in the book. Jeremy’s lawyer is going for a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, but Hope thinks Jeremy is neither guilty nor insane, and she’s determined to prove it.

As a mystery, The Silence of Murder functions pretty well. There’s one obvious red herring, and Mackall keeps the tension high until the reveal at the end. One aspect I appreciated is that Jeremy never stopped being a legitimate suspect, too. Hope’s belief in him is mostly steadfast, but she has her moments of doubt, and as a reader/listener, I had those moments, too.
Hope isn’t the brightest girl, which can be frustrating sometimes. She’s not a terrific sleuth, meaning I often figured out aspects of the mystery before she did (but fortunately not the culprit). She’s also clueless about her best guy friend’s feelings for her, and even more clueless when she sits on the witness stand being cross-examined by the prosecutor. (This scene in particular was very, very painful to listen to). While I won’t say that all protagonists need to have above average (or even average) intelligence, it seemed like this was not actually Mackall’s intent and was perhaps done for plot development rather than character development. Other characters seem to regard Hope as being reasonably intelligent, which I just couldn’t buy.
Strangely for me, I found the family drama more compelling than the actual whodunnit. The relationship between Hope and Jeremy was interesting and frequently moving, and while Hope isn’t a whiz at reading other people, she knows Jeremy to his core. Through her eyes, we come to care for Jeremy and understand the need for Hope to speak for him when he won’t speak for himself. And when she fumbles, it’s brutal to experience. Aside from this central relationship, there are plenty of family secrets that are only tangentially related to the mystery but provide a lot of interest.

This is a bit slower-moving than I generally like my mysteries, but slower stories tend to work better on audio for me. My attention is usually divided at least partly between the story and another task (cleaning, cooking, or in this case, wrapping gifts), so if a story is too action-packed, I could miss something important. I realize this explanation doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement of the audio, but I can appreciate a leisurely-paced story that is narrated well, and not every book should be an edge of your seat page-turner in any case.

Kelly’s commented on the change from hardcover to paperback for this book before. While I’m neutral on both covers, I think they did a really cool thing with the discs for the audio, placing the central cut-out right where Jeremy’s mouth would be.

The Silence of Murder is a decent story that succeeds more as a family drama than a mystery. It’s a good pick for readers interested in autistic or developmentally disabled characters (who are making more of a showing lately, but are still underrepresented). Readers looking for a fast-paced mystery with a twist every ten pages may be disappointed, but the narration is good and the story is rewarding for patient listeners.
Finished audiobook received from publisher.