The Body on the Roof by Kevin Creager

TITLE INFORMATION

THE BODY ON THE ROOF

Kevin Creager

Black Rose Writing, 186 pages

9781684332717, 5.16.19

BOOK REVIEW

Overall Rating = 4.38

Storyline & Concept = 5

Writing & Delivery = 4

Cover Marketability = 5

Editorial = 3.5

A small town where everyone knows everyone else and the most exciting thing the police do is rescue stranded cats provides an ideal setting for this whodunit within a whodunit. The lightweight police procedural dimension of the narrative draws readers into the investigation, and the mid-story surprise will keep them turning pages.

The author has a good voice for his young-reader target audience, but the choice to mix using contractions and avoiding them, sometimes in the same sentence, occasionally results in stilted dialogue. Parents of the youngest readers may want to be aware that there are allusions to adult situations, though nothing explicit. The prologue seems extraneous since the story never returns to that setting, and there are perhaps just a few too many secondary characters that don’t really contribute anything. But overall, A fun read.

Sublime Line: “A good whodunit for young readers with a nice twist in the middle and a valuable life lesson at the end.”

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Sublime Book Review

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