Dead Kid Detective Agency

September 1, 2011

A goth teen meets ghosts, uncovers a murder and even gets a little (very little) work done on her horror novel in this mannered but entertaining prose debut.

October considers the cemetery next to her new house a nice touch, as her single father is clinically depressed and she's been dubbed a "Zombie Tramp" by mean girl Ashlie Salmons just moments after entering the "teenaged Thunderdome" of her new Ontario high school. At least she can work on her magnum opus, Two Knives, One Thousand Demons, among the tombstones—except that just reading a spell from the book calls up the friendly but rambunctious ghosts of five local teens killed over the past two centuries. Then her favorite teacher is crushed beneath a car. The police call it an accident, but October's not so sure...and with help from her motley crew of ectoplasmic allies sets out to discover the truth. Switching frequently for no evident reason between first and third person and occasionally interjecting authorial comments, Munday interweaves a brisk tale of high-school hatreds with an investigation that ultimately leads back to terrorist acts committed 40 years before and culminates in a wild Halloween climax. Munday, a cartoonist, tucks in black-and-white spot portraits and closes with notes on characters and cultural references.

Authorial tics aside, an engaging tale with a resilient heroine, a dead but lively supporting cast and enough wit to grease the wheels. (Detective fantasy. 12-15)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2011
Grades 6-8 What's a goth girl to do when she's in a new town because her clinically depressed, science-teacher dad has lost another job, forcing her to drop anchor in a different, difficult high school? Seek some solace and peace in the local cemetery, of course, meeting kids her own age, or at least kids who were about her own age when they died. In this gently steampunk novel, heavily laced with wit and comic scenes, and the first of a projected series of seven novels, 13-year-old October Schwartz has a tough time at Sticksville High, where the teachers tend toward the strict and the sociopathic. October's French teacher is the exception, both exciting and caring, until he is killed in a mysterious accident in the school's auto repair shop. October's new friends from the cemetery come to her investigatory aid with some impressive ghostly skills. Fans of steampunk and fantasy, including the H. P. Lovecraft and Poe works beloved by October herself, will especially enjoy this.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)