cover image JUDE

JUDE

Kate Morgenroth, . . S&S, $16.95 (277pp) ISBN 978-0-689-86479-7

Readers will need to suspend their disbelief as they begin Morgenroth's (Kill Me First ) dark tale of one teen's loss and redemption. In the crackerjack opening, 15-year-old Jude insists to detectives that he was watching TV while his drug-dealer father was shot dead in another room. But the tantalizing mystery of the teen's possible involvement is quickly solved and the rest of the novel gives way to an overly dramatic back story when a detective learns Jude's long-absent mother is the district attorney in the next town. The detectives alert the woman, who comes to the jail and explains to Jude that his father had kidnapped Jude as an infant. She takes her son home with her, but Jude's "dream... come true" does not last long. Harry, her police commissioner boyfriend and Jude's father's former partner, financed the kidnapping (for reasons that go unexplained) and then he sets Jude up to go to prison so Jude's mother (oblivious to the plan) can look tough on drugs and become mayor. In jail, Jude fights off adult males and wins their respect. Readers who can stomach the cockamamie plot will get to the big finish where the wet-behind-the-ears newspaper reporter—Jude's classmate at school—shows up at the jail and writes an exposé that forces Jude's mother to face the truth. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)