Jex Malone

April 7, 2014
Shipped off to Las Vegas to spend a summer with the father she’s never met, 17-year-old Jex instantly bonds with an ethnically diverse, tight-knit trio: dim-witted Cissy, spoiled Deva, and brilliant Nat. Together, the “Drew-Ids” (an homage to Nancy Drew) investigate the cold case that tore Jex’s parents apart: the disappearance of local girl Patty Matthews. They’re not above breaking-and-entering or theft in the pursuit of evidence, and their unorthodox tactics meet with an implausible amount of success as they find Patty’s journal and a series of drawings related to her disappearance. Meanwhile, Jex and her father, the detective who failed to find Patty, face the consequences of years of estrangement. Debut authors Gaber and Stanley capture Jex’s rage and longing (“You want me to call you Dad?” she screams at him. “Why?.... You’ve never found real time to deal with the burden of having a daughter!”). A surprising ending wraps up the mystery and reconciles Jex and her father, but relies heavily on coincidence. Gaber and Stanley never quite recreate the suspense of the classic detective novels they pay tribute to. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jill Kramer, Waterside Productions.

May 15, 2014
A police detective's daughter spends a summer solving a crime.The moment Jex arrives at her estranged father's house, the plot becomes far too convenient. Three teen girls, fascinated by rumors that Detective Malone has a daughter (the detective's level of awe-inspiring celebrity never feels particularly believable), invite themselves into Jex's father's house. By the end of the afternoon, Jex and the others have declared themselves friends, formed a secret detective agency and reopened the high-profile unsolved case of local teen Patty Matthews' disappearance 13 years earlier. Almost immediately, the girls discover Patty's private journal, which, despite an extensive police investigation, had not previously been found. No element of the story works any better than its hard-to-swallow plot. Jex's narrative wisecracking is occasionally clever ("The girl is a walking punctuation mark") but just as often clunky and unfunny. The girls have little beyond one defining characteristic each; Jex's relationship with her dad changes from hostile to heartfelt with very little impetus, and the mystery's resolution is simplistic. The "famous girl detective quotes" that begin each chapter serve as an upbeat reminder of women sleuth role models, but their content is often quotidian and only tenuously related to the chapter that follows.A dud. (Mystery. 12-18)

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July 1, 2014

Gr 7-10-New Jersey teen Jex Malone is forced by court order to spend the summer in Las Vegas with her police detective father, a man she barely knows. Once there, she becomes instantly (and conveniently) embroiled in a friendship and mystery with three neighborhood girls who, like Jex, want to know what happened to Patty Matthews, another teen who disappeared from their block 13 years ago. In Jex's mind, the disappearance of Patty Matthews was the cause of her parents' divorce, since her father devoted all of his time to the case. The plot alternates between moving at lightning speed-with the teens forming their own detective agency (the "Drew-Ids," an homage to Nancy Drew) and discovering new evidence through some creative breaking and entering-and plodding explication as Jex reads along from Patty's long, lost diary, which the protagonists discover in an astonishing visit with Patty's brother. The many characters have little depth, the situations are difficult to believe, and the denouement, while heartwarming, is stilted. When the mystery is solved, an opening is left for this quartet of amateur detectives to reconvene at Christmas.-Sharon Grover, Hedberg Public Library, Janesville, WI

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