Buried Thunder

Bowler, Tim. Buried Thunder

Maya and her brother are out investigating owls near their new home when Maya runs off into the dark and finds three dead bodies. She makes it home and the police and ambulance swarm the family's Rowan Tree Inn, but no bodies are found. Maya is confused, but creepy things keep happening; local thug but ladies' man Zep threatens her, homeless Bonny and her ward Mo are somehow involved in investigating the ritual murder of local foxes, and a former owner of the Rowan Tree is found murdered. When events start to lead

Strengths: Bowler, author of Blade: Playing Dead and Blade: Out of the Shadows has a wonderful, creepy way of writing. My students are always wanting murder mysteries, and this one is sort of Agatha Christie meets CSI. The British do horror and mystery so well. up to a recreation of the night Maya thought she found bodies, she is able to get help for her family and the people who are poisoned. Something is going on, but what? And how can Maya stop the killer from taking out more people?

Weaknesses: There are a few slightly questionable scenes with Zep, and certainly the murder of the foxes is fairly gruesome. Like Tunnel Vision, I wasn't completely sold on the solution to the mystery, either, but I will definitely be buying a copy of this for my library!

Maia, Love. DJ Rising.

From the Publisher (Little, Brown, who kindly sent a review copy):
"Sixteen-year-old Marley Diego-Dylan's career as "DJ Ice" is skyrocketing, but his mother's heroin addiction keeps dragging him back to earth."

This was a really compelling story, and I liked Marley and was very interested in how he would handle all of the challenges thrown his way, but this is not a book for my middle school readers. There is casual beer drinking and subsequent driving, a lot of crude sexual references and f-bombs. So why did I even pick it up? My students are constantly asking for books about drug abuse, and it's very hard (not surprisingly!) to find books about drug abuse that don't include a lot of other things that would cause problems with parents. For high school or a public library, this would be a great story that also includes a lot of information about the music industry.