Center for Teaching & Learning

Brian is a high school basketball star and self-taught guitarist.  He's recovering from his childhood friend and girlfriend Amanda's death, who was killed along with her mother and brother.  The suspect is her father, but Brian is not sure he's the murderer.  If that isn't enough, Brian's faith in the justice system is shaken when his best friend Julius is wrongly accused because he's black and lives in the wrong part of town.  When he studies about Leo Frank, a innocent man charged for murder, in history class, he reexamines the day of Amanda's death and remembers a small, seemly insignificant detail.  He begins to ask: What can he learn from Leo Frank? Did Amanda's dad really kill her? Can what he knows bring the real killer to justice?
Elaine Alphin has written a gripping mystery that is as beautiful as it is suspenseful.  She brings all the characters to life with realistic dialogue, thoughts and feelings, and human characteristics.  For example, the reader can really understand Brian's pain at the death of Amanda and the fear of what more investigation might find. This book has a variety of  appealing aspects like: quick basketball action sequences; an exploration of racial profiling; suspenseful mystery; and an examination of the meaning of justice and friendship. So many readers will like it, for many different reasons.  Long after you finish it, it will stay with you, leaving you asking questions about what is right and wrong, the meaning of justice, and how well the legal system really works.
Tess
Publisher:  Carolrhoda Books, 360 pages