Envy

July 18, 2011
Kicking off the Empty Coffin series, true crime writer Olsen (Closer Than Blood) makes his YA debut with a paranormally tinged thriller that doesn't read like it was written with a teenage audience in mind. In the wake of 15-year-old Katelyn Berkley's mysterious death, everyone in the small town of Port Gamble, Wash., is looking for answers, though the consensus is suicide. Unconvinced and anxious to learn the truth, teenage twin sisters Hayley and Taylor Ryan investigate, using both knowledge gleaned from their true crime writer father (who gets more than his share of attention) and their own psychic abilities. As they unravel the details that led to their friend's demise, they encounter uncomfortable revelations regarding people they've known all their lives. Meanwhile, a nosy journalist is digging deep into the Ryans' tragic past. While Olsen writes with authority, drawing inspiration from actual headlines and crimes, he does so at a distance, removed from any real connection to the characters. The result is a stark, emotionless narrative, a cynical rumination on the nature of evil and man's darkness. Ages 12âup.

August 15, 2011

Katelyn's death is ruled accidental by the coroner, but twins Hayley and Taylor are convinced that a deeper evil has been committed.

In Port Gamble, a lumber-company town in Washington, the connections run both broad and deep, and it's the exploration of these connections that provides the most satisfying aspect of this mystery. Everyone knows that the twins survived a crash when they were little, and yet no one has realized that they have an eerie connection to the dead and the future. This sixth sense has Hay-Tay, as best friend Beth Lee calls them, sleuthing for evidence that Katelyn's death was more than an accident. The opening is suspenseful, and chapter-ending cliffhangers help to maintain this, but readers will find that the evil and envy at the heart of the story prove to be disappointingly mundane. By the end, the author's teasing style may be more irritating than suspense-building. Multiple well-developed characters add a depth and enigmatic quality that help to compensate for the lackluster plot. Small-town settings have long been used as laboratories to examine character, and this claustrophobic town is no different. Sequel expected; here's hoping Olsen's eye for character remains strong while he works on buffing up his plotting.

A relatively gratifying examination of the complexity of connections in a close-knit community. (Suspense. 12 & up)

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October 1, 2011

Gr 7-10-Found electrocuted in the bathtub, Katelyn Berkley, 15, who had a history of cutting, appears to have committed suicide. But from chapter one of this thriller there are suggestions that someone else was involved in her death. Hayley and Taylor Ryan, who, along with Katelyn, were the only children to survive a tragic bus crash years earlier, may be the only ones who can uncover the truth. The twins possess a kind of supernatural insight, allowing them to receive messages from the dead via dreams, visions, and Scrabble letters. What emerges is a picture of a lonely girl, a vengeful neighbor, and a fake online boyfriend. An author's note explains that the events in the book were inspired by one of the earliest cases connecting cyberbullying to teen suicide. This book's timeliness will give it relevance and appeal to teens who themselves regularly experience social ups and downs online. The author is master of the short, dramatic sentence, at times overusing it in service of the book's taut, suspenseful mood. With its punchy prose, pop-culture references, and steady stream of unraveling clues, this book has potential for reluctant readers. Give it to teens with a macabre bent, who won't be turned off by a few genre cliches.-Emma Burkhart, Springside School, Philadelphia, PA

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