The Killing Woods

December 16, 2013
Printz honoree Christopher (Stolen) returns with another tense and nimbly crafted psychological thriller. Last summer, Emily Shepherd's father, a veteran suffering from paralyzing PTSD, returned home carrying the corpse of Emily's high school acquaintance Ashlee Parker. Now he's on trial for Ashlee's murder. Though Emily believes in her father's innocence, few others do, and Emily's association with her father leads to her ostracism. The narrative alternates between the perspectives of Emily and Damon, Ashlee's boyfriend, who awoke the morning after her death hungover and with little memory of the previous night. Embittered by the death of his own father in the war, Damon blames Emily for the added pain of losing Ashlee. Christopher gracefully explores the agony of combat-related PTSD, its effects on its sufferers and their families, and the capacity for violence, while refraining from making the novel feel issue-driven. Despite the growing attraction between Damon and Emily, they keep their secrets and memories to themselves, investigating Ashlee's death separately, which maintains an intriguing duality. Two meticulously constructed voices assemble a dark and unnerving puzzle in this immersive mystery. Ages 14âup.

Starred review from December 15, 2013
This taut, psychologically realistic murder mystery knits trauma, danger, tragedy and hope into one cohesive tale. In a horrifying opening scene, Emily watches her father return from the forest carrying what looks like an injured deer but turns out to be a girl--dead. Dad's having a flashback to the military event that gave him PTSD. As a soldier, he'd accidentally killed a civilian; did he kill this girl, Ashlee, as well? Ashlee's boyfriend, Damon, awakens hung over the next morning, confused that Ashlee's not in his bed. They'd been in Darkwood the night before with his mates, playing the Game. Ashlee gave Damon hallucinogenic drugs, and he can't remember how the night--or the Game--ended. Damon and Emily alternate chapters in distinct first-person voices. Damon's traumatized by Ashlee's murder and his father's military death; Emily's devastated that her sometimes-violent yet "scared of everything" father--possibly innocent--is pleading guilty to manslaughter. Darkwood's thick forest, high peak and leftover war bunker make a vivid setting. Readers will be riveted by slow, potent reveals about the rough nature of the Game, Ashlee's insistence on danger and adrenaline, and what happened that night. The answers hurt, but they feel right and they make sense. A sprout of hope at the end is fragile and unforced. A gripping, heartbreaking, emotionally substantial look at war wounds and the allure of danger. (Mystery. 14 & up)

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March 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Emily Shepherd looks out the window in the early morning and sees her father carrying something through the woods. A deer? No, it's the body of a teenage girl. And Emily knows her: it's Ashlee Parker, a classmate, and girlfriend of football star Damon Hilary. Emily's dad, who suffers from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder, is accused of the murder, and it is up to her to find out what really happened in the woods that horrible night. The first two-thirds of the story is taut, suspenseful, and very intense: characters are revealed in complex layers, and the woods take on an eerie personality of their own. Teens will read voraciously, seeking out answers and the truth, instantly recognizing Emily and Damon as unreliable narrators. However, the novel gets bogged down with repetitious dialogue and descriptions. In the early chapters, Christopher dribbles out details in deliciously tantalizing ways, but at the story's midpoint, the author withholds too much, and the plot begins to move at a snail's pace. At the peak of the action, intensely exciting moments are broken up by mundane details that kill the lightning-fast pace. Ultimately, though, like Chris Lynch's Inexcusable (S & S, 2005), this is a fascinating discussion of teen violence, self-denial, and conspiracies of silence. And even though readers will likely guess the culprit before the protagonists do, they'll still be hanging on to every word until the end.-Laura Lutz, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2013
Grades 9-12 Everyone thinks Emily's dad did it. He's the one crippled by military PTSD; he's the one who came staggering out of the woods with the dead, strangled body of popular teen Ashlee; he's the one who admits he doesn't remember what happened and pleads guilty to manslaughter. Emily, though, refuses to believe it and locks horns with Ashlee's boyfriend, Damon. The two, who share a lusty chemistry from their first pugnacious interaction, alternate narrations, and it is through Damon's tale that we learn of the Game, a pseudomilitary pastime he, his friends, and Ashlee played at night in the woods. High on fairy dust, Damon barely recalls the fatal night's Game but slowly begins to remember itand just as slowly, he and Emily begin to come around to the other's viewpoint. Christopher's follow-up to the Printz Honorwinning Stolen (2010) sags beneath circular, repetitive conversations, but nonetheless delivers a mystery that grows ever more disturbing with each revelation. Some readers will guess the big secret early, but that doesn't mean the thrills don't pack a punch. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The well-received Stolen paves the way for a 100,000 first printing, author tour, writing contest, and more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)