One Good Punch by Rich Wallace

Wow. What a great, short, ya novel.

18 year old Michael Kerrigan is ready for the spring of his senior year. This is his spring to go all the way in track and field. And then it’s off to college and out of Scranton. He’s working at the Scranton Observer in order to get experience before he writes his great American novel. But then during a weekend raid, four joints are found in his locker. And he’s faced with a choice – expulsion from high school or ratting out his childhood friend.

A quick read, great tight prose, and an interesting dilemma. Also a great example of how we can be knocked down but how to get back up. This is also about telling the truth – your truth, not what people sometimes make up as the truth. All in all an excellent novel.

What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn

In 1984, 10 year old Kate Meaney is training to be a detective. She and Mickey (her stuffed monkey) have opened Falcon Investigations and find suspects to trail at the newly opened Green Oaks shopping mall. Her only friend is Adrian, the son of a local shopkeeper. But the Kate disappears and Adrian is a suspect, so he leaves too. Fast forward to 2003. Adrian’s sister is the assistant manager at a music store in the mall. Lisa is unhappy in her own life, and one day in the staff corridors she finds a stuffed monkey, which connects her with Kurt, the mall security guard who caught a glimpse of a little girl on the mall’s surveillance cameras. Lisa and Kurt begin to investigate how these sightings might be related to Kate’s disappearance – as well as the history of Green Oaks itself.

This book has generated some early buzz in Britain, along with starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. It was a good read and the ending twist was a surprise to me. A good debut. I really liked Kate’s character and the adrift life of Lisa and Kurt rang true as well.