Synopsis: Jim is just regaining some semblance of a normal life following his father's sudden disappearance, when he is attacked by a crazy girl. Ruth Rose has a wild story to tell about her stepfather, the saintly Father Fisher, and needs someone to believe her - and help her prove it. Gradually Jim is convinced by Ruth Rose and they find themselves tracking a murderer and caught up in a dangerous web of secrets from a dark and unsettling past.

Review: A stunningly good whodunnit, psychological thriller an inspired (and inspiring) insight into the teenage mind which in the five years since its transatlantic publication has already won several awards in the author's native Canada and the US, and which must surely be in strong contention for similar recognition here.

Although bearing the name of R.L. Stevenson's young protagonist in Treasure Island, Wynne-Jones' teenager brings with him greater intertextual references to Mark Twain's characters in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and ...Huckleberry Finn, as well as that of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, and he offers the same clear, analytical adolescent observation of the adult world.

Jim is haunted by his father's disappearance, feels betrayed by it, and becomes electively mute for a period before the novel begins, acting out his bitter despair in an antagonistic physical isolation and hard work. Ruth Rose, goth by appearance, apparently 'hard as nails' but always with the smell of the rose scent given her by her real father, suffering from mental illness triggered by her family trauma, indelibly scarred by it and achingly vulnerable, seeks Jim's help to expose 'Father' Fisher, his veneer of religious correctness, and his past. Yet a great part of the power of this novel is in the dilemmas it poses to its readers: for the preacher it isn't a veneer: Fisher truly believes he has expunged the actions of his youth in his acceptance of God.

This book deserves to become a classic of YA fiction. Wynne-Jones writes with directness, economy and great style, examining generic adolescent angst and individual trauma with a laser-like accuracy both of insight and description. Key Stage 3 and above readers will be swept along by the excitement of the narrative, then intrigued, disturbed and challenged by the veracity of the personal tragedies and triumphs which lie deeper within the text, and by its relationship with the earlier YA novels mentioned above. Don't miss it!

2006-12-01