The Trickster's Lullaby

July 1, 2017
Continuing a trek across Canada that seems unwittingly aimed at unearthing traumas to rival the nightmare she experienced when Boko Haram struck in Nigeria, returning aid worker Amanda Doucette (Fire in the Stars, 2016) takes a dozen Montreal teenagers on a camping trip into deep troubles.Persuaded first by her journalist friend Matthew Goderich to lead the Laurentian Extreme Adventure and then by divorced local artist Ghyslaine Prevost to include her son Luc among the campers despite his prison time for dealing drugs, Amanda has an eye out for trouble from the beginning. But she doesn't expect the forms it takes: first the reluctance of husband-and-wife guides Sebastien and Sylvie Laroque to join Zidane, a youth counselor who doesn't want to work with a female guide, even after he relents; then Zidane's determination to dilute the cross-cultural bonding Amanda's aiming for by segregating the campers into Arabs and non-Arabs; and finally Luc's sudden disappearance when he takes off one night, apparently to meet someone else. When Yasmina, an Iraqi camper who was friendly with Luc, also vanishes, the scene seems set for a snowy remake of And Then There Were None. But Fradkin has other fish to fry. She leaves the campers behind to follow the inquiries of Cpl. Chris Tymko, an Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer sweet on Amanda, who keeps calling different police forces for information and assistance until, inevitably, he calls a colleague who finds his own interest in the case dangerous. Both Luc and Yasmina, it seems, have been in touch with an Islamic State group recruiter calling himself Abu Osama, and there's every indication that at least one of them is involved in a terrorist plot whose clock is ticking relentlessly down. Fradkin downplays sleuthing and suspense in favor of counterterrorism twists; when the violence begins, there's less interest in who killed whom than in whether the heroine and her friends can foil a diabolical bombing plot.

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Starred review from October 23, 2017
Fradkin’s second Amanda Doucette thriller (following Fire in the Stars) is a high-adrenaline plunge into the dangerous and murky waters of the homegrown terrorism. Amanda, a former international aid worker, wants to make a difference following her return to Canada. She launches a charity that takes disadvantaged youth on wilderness trips, and her first outing is a winter camping trip with a mix of inner-city immigrant and Canadian-born youth from Montreal intended to help bridge cultural divides. Trouble begins when Luc, a French-Canadian 18-year-old with a history of drug use, disappears from the campsite. Then an Iraqi girl, Yasmina, also disappears. When a local farmer is found murdered and terrorist material is discovered on Luc’s computer, Amanda and Royal Canadian Mounted Police Corporal Chris Tymko, whom readers may remember from the previous book, must work together to find the teens and stop a terrorist plot. Fradkin’s background as a psychologist is evident in her well-developed characters, who are matched by smart plotting and timely questions of what draws young people to extremist ideologies.

July 1, 2017
Former international aid worker Amanda Doucette is giving back in her native Canada, leading groups of inner-city teens on snowy survival excursions. Her latest trek has been plagued by problems. One student drops out, one of the Muslim families objects to a female guide, and the school sponsor doesn't approve of Amanda's last-minute addition of Luc, a young man who has only recently addressed his drug addiction. Shortly after the trip gets underway, Luc disappears. Then Iraqi immigrant Yasmina goes missing. Amanda quizzes the kids on the trip, and her friend Matthew, a journalist, talks to the missing students' parents. It turns out that both teens had been in contact with members of a militant Islamic group that promises young people a way to find a higher purpose in their lives. The race is on to find the teens before they become a part of something they can never undo.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)