Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Language:  A handful of common profanity and swear words.

Violence:  A woman is reported killed but there is no detail given.   A girl is slugged by her brother.  A girl grapples physically with a killer, but runs away.  The killer then tries to push her head underwater to drown her, unsuccessfully.  He is washed away over the waterfall.

Sexual Content:  One short kiss between a boy and girl.

Adult Themes:  Two murders, one years ago.  A woman described as “cracked up.”  Two suspects drink heavily.  The teenage protagonist lies to her parents, her friends, and the police, skips school and breaks into other people’s property.  Her grandfather drinks several times, and her teenage brother drinks, another teen has a DUI.

Synopsis
Thirteen-year-old Ingrid Levin-Hill decides to be independent and walk to soccer practice.  After getting lost on the way, she meets a woman people call Cracked-Up Katie and calls a taxi from Katie’s house.  Ingrid is horrified to hear Katie’s murder announced on the news the next day.  She is afraid to tell anyone she was at Katie’s house, and then realizes she left her soccer shoes in Katie’s living room.  Thinking she might be fingered as a suspect, she secretly heads off to retrieve her shoes in the middle of the night.  The plot thickens when she sees another intruder in the house while she is there.  She knows the wrong men have been arrested for the crime—but is afraid to talk, even when the police chief questions her directly about those red soccer shoes.  In the meantime, the chief’s cute son starts calling her, she gets the lead role in the community play, and her relationship with her older brother Ty has its ups and downs.  She continues a positive relationship with her Grampy, a lively character in the family.  Ingrid independently investigates, trying to figure out whodunnit.

The modern details of  Ingrid’s life make her very current—chatting on the computer with her friend, wearing red Puma soccer shoes, painting her face at the football game.  She also has a great relationship with her grandfather, who is quite a humorous character.  These kinds of details made it a fun mystery, and there was some tension building from the beginning, as I could see danger sooner than Ingrid could.  There were insufficient reasons for Ingrid to lie to all the authorities—she has loving parents, came from a sheltered background, and should have trusted authority figures.  She does, however, learn how building a web of lies can really get you tangled up.  I liked the fact that she was given no superhuman or “superadolescent” level of knowledge–she does her research and gradually figures out the murders with the understanding an eighth grader might have.