Death Wore White-Jim Kelly

The Morgue and Me
John C. Ford
Viking, Jun 25 2009, $17.99
ISBN: 9780670010967

In Petoskey, Michigan eighteen year old Christopher Newell may be his high school Valedictorian and won a regents Scholarship to Northwestern Michigan University, but he plans to become a spy though he has no idea how one applies for the job; only that it is cool and a woman magnet vocation. Meanwhile he obtains a job for the summer at the morgue so he can receive on the job training in forensic pathology.

While most of his job is filing and clean up, he comes across some odd information involving the cover up by crooked politicians hiding a toxic disaster. As he digs deeper, Christopher begins connecting further dots including a tie to a local felon. However, now that he has enough information to bring down a conspiracy fostered by a criminal industrial political complex, he has no idea who to turn to with his information as he distrusts everyone except a classmate he wants to date. Soon Christopher believes that someone is watching his every move; either that he figures or he has become paranoid.

THE MORGUE AND ME opens with the teen explaining how he just shot someone and now is seeing a shrink who accuses him of disassociation; not a good thing for a cop or an espionage agent. The story line just takes off from there as Christopher explains what happened during the craziest but most wonderful summer of his life as the young hero begins to tie together the conspiracy that engulfs Petoskey. Yong adult fans will relish the class valedictorian turn hard boiled teen detective Mindful of the teen noir movie Brick, fans will enjoy the most insane summer of Christopher’s young life.

Harriet Klausner