Orphan Monster Spy

Killeen’s harrowing debut opens in August 1939, just after a 15-year-old Jewish girl named Sarah and her mother drive through a Nazi checkpoint in a German town. Sarah’s mother dies in the crash, but Sarah evades capture thanks to Helmut Haller, aka Captain Jeremy Floyd, a British spy. Jeremy is attempting to prevent one of Hitler’s scientists, Hans Schäfer, from building a nuclear bomb. He offers to help Sarah escape Germany, but she insists on joining his campaign. Posing as Haller’s niece Ursula, Sarah enrolls at Rothenstadt, a Nazi boarding school. Her mission—befriending Schäfer’s daughter, Elsa—proves more dangerous than either she or Jeremy imagined. Despite a dynamite premise, dizzyingly high stakes, and some devastating moments, Killeen’s tale falls short of its potential. While the story’s adult characters are complex and realistically flawed, Rothenstadt’s residents read like mean-girl caricatures, and the frequency with which the intelligent, empathetic Sarah refers to herself as a dumme Schlampe (“stupid bitch”) is off-putting and out of character. The book starts strong and ends with a bang, but the muddy middle highlights the paucity of plot. Ages 12–up. Agent: Molly Ker Hawn, Bent Agency. (Mar.)