cover image THE ROSE QUEEN: Missing Persons Book One

THE ROSE QUEEN: Missing Persons Book One

M. E. Rabb, . . Penguin/Speak, $5.99 (186pp) ISBN 978-0-14-250041-5

Despite an uneasy mix of humor and dark currents, this whodunit makes for an entertaining read. After their widower father dies, narrator Sophie Shattenberg, 15, and her 17-year-old sister Sam run away before Enid, their stepmother, can send Sophie to a boarding school "focused on rehabilitating unruly youth." The two head to Indianapolis, where a shady friend of Sam's knows an underworld boss, taking with them the $300,000 that Enid would have inherited. When their car breaks down in tiny Venice, Ind., the New York City teens try to blend with the quirky natives (the sisters pose as orphans from Cleveland). But nasty Noelle, the town's Rose Queen, goes missing after a fight with Sophie, and the siblings become suspects. To clear their names, they investigate Noelle's disappearance. Readers will likely be drawn to smart but ditzy Sophie and appreciate her bond with sensible Sam. Sophie's interactions with the inept brothers who comprise the town's police force and Venice's popular teens ("I thought that was a Cleveland accent," Noelle says after hearing Sophie talk) make for some hilarious scenes. But the mood can be somber, too: Sophie and her sister remain well aware that they are alone in the world and Noelle's case turns out to be creepy—and is rather quickly resolved. Still, the mixed overtones likely won't stop readers from following the sisters' next adventure, The Chocolate Lover (ISBN 0-14-250042-9, due simultaneously), in which the girls act as assistants to Venice's only private detective, hired by an old man (whose last name is Shattenberg, too) to find his missing sweetheart. Ages 12-up. (June)