Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Jefferson Andrews has been murdered, and Abby is sure that her younger sister, Maya, is going to be blamed for the crime. Eighteen-year-old Abby has spent her life trying to protect Maya, who's a drug user and frequent runaway, and who had a stormy romantic relationship with Jefferson, her tutor. For all he looked the golden boy, Jefferson was a player and a bully with a lucrative business in running drugs, and Abby knows that there are several people who might have wanted him dead. As she juggles Maya's evasion of capture, her parents' rage, and her classmates' various incriminating secrets, she comes ever closer to a truth that she may wish to keep secret. That's a scenario ripe for lots of emotional turmoil, sisterly lovehate, and breaking in and slipping around, and Schrefer delivers those in spades; he's also slithered in some advance hints of the eventual twist that makes this an even darker story than the plot already suggests. While it's not entirely clear at the end which plot tidbits amid the multifarious deceptions and secrets were red herrings and which were part of the main course, the chilly noir amorality has a tart pleasure all its own. Hand this to fans of Nancy Werlin's The Killer's Cousin (BCCB 9/98).