Tunnel Vision

Fans of Davis's Nickel Plated (2011) will welcome this sequel set in Grand Rapids, Mich., though others may weary of the focus on what one character calls "petty teenage bullshit." Betty Martinez, who dyes her hair purple and sports a ring in her nose and a stud in her lip, and her best friend at Northview High, June Derricks, dream of crime-solving glory. Multiple points of view include diary entries by June's aunt Mandy, an underage junkie and hooker killed in a sleazy squat more than a decade earlier, and reflections by Nickel, a pot-grower and dealer, murderer, and teenage private eye, who mysteriously assists the girls in their unlikely term paper project of discovering Mandy's killer. Meanwhile, Betty is distrustful of the good-cop/bad-cop routine of her two moms, Ophelia, an artist, and Andrea, an "ass-kicking children's psychologist." One tired plot device improbably follows another in this fictional attempt to analyze adolescent behavior. (Oct.)