Suspect

September 1, 2010

Jen doesn't want to spend her 17th summer working at her grandmother's bed-and-breakfast inn, but her dad says she has to. She's just broken up with her boyfriend, though, and she finds herself becoming far too attracted to her "uncousin" Mark, her grandmother's step-grandson. Worse, Jen's archenemy also works at the inn, and the girl appears to be making a play for the newly fascinating Mark. The plot thickens when Grandma Kay decides to have one of her popular "mystery weekends" at the inn, but with a difference. This time Grandma Kay wants to find out what happened to Jen's mother, who disappeared years earlier. Grandma Kay suspects murder, although Jen has been receiving gifts and letters from her mother ever since she left. Jen winds up reluctantly playing the murder victim in a game that easily could turn real. Nitz intertwines and then untangles relationships among the teens and guests, weaving a credible mystery for a wide adolescent audience. With clues and red herrings neatly scattered throughout, the book scores as a darned good little mystery. Intriguing, suspenseful fun. (Mystery. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2011

Gr 6-9-Jen's mother disappeared when Jen was a toddler but Grandma Kay is convinced that Ellen was murdered. While working at her grandmother's bed-and-breakfast for the summer, 17-year-old Jen must play a part in the annual murder mystery weekend. However, she gets more than she bargained for as she comes to the realization that the plot is alarmingly similar to her mother's disappearance. Taking on the role of Ellen and playing the victim, Jen is surrounded by people from her mother's past. Through the course of the mystery, she begins to piece together clues about what really happened. The characters are likable enough but hardly memorable. The mystery, while somewhat interesting, is wrapped up much too neatly in the last few pages and is not much of a surprise. Still, the book has wholesome characters and an innocent love story.-Jessie Spalding, Tempe Public Library, AZ

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2010
Grades 7-10 Its Mystery Weekend at Grandma Kays elegant Schoenhaus, the bed and breakfast where Jen is working for the summer. Fourteen years have passed since her mother Ellens unexplained disappearance, and yet the campy weekend theatrics trigger painful plot comparisons and unanswered questions about Ellens plight. Does the intricate role-playing somehow mirror the true crime, if the disappearance was indeed crime related? Moreover, is the domineering Kay artfully directing the farce to try to expose clues and possible witnesses in the actual cold case? Jen labors under a heavy emotional burden as she confronts the loss of her mother and tries to sort out details relating to years of letters in the mail, supposedly from Ellen. Now, something else has just arrived as a gifther mothers ring. Mystery fans will root for Jen and speculate away as they try to figure out what really happened in this somewhat awkwardly structured coming-of-age-within-a-whodunit tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)