Description
Product Description
“The careful writing will hold [the] secret under wraps until the startling conclusion.” —School Library Journal
When college reporter Mike Mavic finds out that a body’s been found in the small town of Steepleton, New Jersey—four years after Christopher Creed mysteriously disappeared—he hops a plane to get the story that will undoubtedly launch his journalistic career. But what Mike finds is a strange town suffering under a cloud of bad luck. And to the unstable sixteen-year-old Justin Creed who’s obsessed with his older brother’s memory, discovering what really happened to Chris Creed is a matter of life and death.
Review
"The end result is a satisfying psychological exploration of a social milieu as well as a sense of closure to a case that left readers wondering what ultimately happened to Christopher Creed."--Bulletin
About the Author
Carol Plum-Ucci has been widely praised for capturing the heart and voice of teens while seamlessly combining reality with the supernatural. Her first novel, The Body of Christopher Creed, was a Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. Her subsequent books have all earned much critical acclaim and many award citations. www.carolplumucci.com
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One
IT HAPPENED ON A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. I’m a sucker for stories starting like that. I like it even better when it’s true. I said as much to my girlfriend, RayAnn, as she cut the engine, and we were left with the sounds of drumming raindrops on the roof and a surge of wind through the forest. Finally she leaned over me and opened the passenger door of our borrowed car.
"I’ll stay here," she said.
I heaved my backpack over one shoulder, trying to size up the distance between us and a couple of flashlights bobbing in what appeared to be a crowd.
"Thought you wanted to be an
investigative journalist," I lectured.
"Can I write about a bank robbery before I do a dead body?"
I got out, saying, "You can do anything you want.
God bless America . . . land that I—"
Lanz, from the back seat, started panting and whining. I patted his head.
"Stay," I told him as I stepped into the rain and slammed the car door.
The forest trail was wide up to the crime scene tape holding back a group of people with flashlights. I stooped under the tape and kept going. The last ten yards were treacherous—uphill and full of bramble, which, fortunately, kept me from skimming backwards. I crept up to a second crime scene tape surrounding a gaggle of orange ponchos where portable floodlights beamed onto the ground. We were maybe a quarter mile behind Torey Adams’s house, I knew, from the map on his website.
Adams launched ChristopherCreed.com four years ago, about a year after Chris disappeared during their junior year at Steepleton High School. They hadn’t been friends, but Adams needed to make sense out of Chris’s disappearance. Creed hadn’t had any friends. Since its launch, lots of visitors have become site fans, including me and RayAnn. Adams is a budding musician in L.A. now who doesn’t post much anymore and doesn’t respond to interview requests.
I haven’t been a reporter for long. In fact, some would say that because I write for a college newspaper and I’m only a junior, I’m not actually a reporter. I’m a
pretend reporter, that’s what they would say.
Whatever. I know a good potential story when I hear it. I’ve been following this one for four years. I know when it’s finally time to sell my laptop to buy a plane ticket.
I had already won my blowout with Claudia Winston, our editor in chief, a first-year grad student and equal parts bluster and brains. This morning she tore around the office demanding to know why I was stupid enough to bail on covering the Spring Formal, which would force her into it because all the other reporte