Dead on Town Line - Hardcover

Leslie Connor is a Publishers Weekly Flying Starts author who makes her YA debut with this original novel-in-verse. She lives in Connecticut.

Grade 9 Up -A powerful story, told in free verse from the perspective of a teenage murder victim. Cassie's body lies hidden in a crevice, where she tries to figure out what happens next. She meets the ghost of Birdie, another murdered girl who was hidden in the same crevice years earlier. But while people are desperately searching for Cassie, Birdie says, "Ain't nobody to care 'bout me...I'm jus' a missin' chicken,/Penny down a drain." Each verse/chapter adds a piece to the puzzle of Cassie's death until her body is found and the crime is solved. The deceased girls are able to help Cassie's loved ones find a sense of closure and complete her life's work, a piano composition. The language is lyrical and haunting, adding to the suspense. The details of the natural world surrounding the victims give the story an ethereal quality. Adding to it are the black-and-white drawings depicting images from Cassie's life and death. The free-verse style does not allow for much character development, without which it's difficult to understand exactly what motivated the senseless act. Otherwise, this is an absorbing and moving story.-Sonja Cole, Briarcliff Middle School, Mountain Lakes, NJ
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