Charlie, Presumed Dead by Anne Heltzel

Charlie, Presumed Dead is a psychological thriller with a twist that leads to a shocking ending.

Nineteen year old Lena Whitney and seventeen year old Aubrey Burroughs discover each other at the funeral, in Paris, France, of their mutual boyfriend/lover, Charlie Price. Charlie died when the Cessna he was piloting crashed into the North Sea off the coast of Durham. Charlie did not have a license to fly and no one knows why he took the plane out. No body was recovered and only Charlie's bloodstained jacket was found.

With her parents currently in Marseille, Lena has no problem attending Charlie's funeral but for Aubrey who is from the United States, she had to get permission from her parents to fly over for the funeral. Aubrey doesn't know anyone at the funeral and has never met Charlie's parents either. The only person she's met from his life is Adam, his roommate from his senior year in Mumbai. Aubrey's been dating Charlie for a little over a year. In contrast, Lena is the girlfriend Charlie's family knows as they've been dating for three years.

After the service, Lena confronts Aubrey about being the other woman and they go to a cafe to talk about what's just happened in their lives. The two women soon discover that the man they supposedly know is very different. Lena reveals that Charlie told her Aubrey was the "good family friend" while Aubrey did not know about Lena. Lena knows Charlie as a jazz musician while Aubrey found him "hopeless with music". Comparing notes leads Aubrey to wonder if there is more going on than they know. Lena decides to return to London to track down Charlie's past as she believes there's a possibility he faked his death. At first Aubrey declines Lena's invitation to join her but eventually changes her mind. Aubrey wants to recover something of hers that Charlie took, but she doesn't tell Lena.

In London, Lena and Aubrey are taken by Xander, a former friend and "weed hookup" of Charlie's to a club called Fabric where Charlie partied. Aubrey knew Charlie as a gamer who tried weed but hated it, whereas Lena states that he "probably never played a video game in his life". Xander reveals that Charlie lost a brown leather journal he was obsessed about a few months ago in Mumbai. Xander shows the two women a picture of the journal, which Aubrey recognizes as hers. The journal was lost at the Taj Hotel in Colaba, a neighbourhood in South Mumbai. Aubrey tells Lena the journal is hers and she needs to retrieve it even if that means traveling to Bombay. Lena agrees, offering to pay for their trip. At this time it becomes apparent that both girls are keeping secrets from one another. Both girls acknowledge that it now seems odd that Charlie told neither of them that he had returned to Mumbai a few months ago. Lena fills Aubrey in on his backstory, telling her that Charlie spent middle school in Paris, but then was moved to Mumbai for his freshman year of high school. When that did not work out well, he was moved to London for his sophomore and junior year and then returned to Mumbai for his senior year. He traveled to New York for the summer which is when he met Aubrey. That fall Charlie started at Oxford. Both Lena and Aubrey admit they found Charlie beginning to act strange this past year, which they attributed to exam stress.

At the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel the front desk has no journal. While Lena's asleep, Aubrey decides to hook-up with Adam, Charlie's old roommate from Bombay who still works for an NGO. The next day Lena, Aubrey and Adam meet up to discuss Charlie. Adam admits to not knowing Charlie had two girlfriends. He tells them that Charlie had a friend, Anand, in Kerala who owns a tourist boat and who would supply Charlie with weed and booze. From Aubrey and Adam's behaviour, Lena realizes that they are lovers. When confronted later on by Lena, Aubrey tells her that she only cheated on Charlie once and that she told him three months ago when he visited her at her parents home in Illinois on May 19th.

Lena and Aubrey locate Anand and arrange to go out on his boat at night. On the trip Lena divulges that Charlie wrote a suicide note to his mother dated May 20 which she found in his drawer. Anand tells the two women that Charlie owes him money. He also reveals that Charlie has a half brother, Dane. Both Lena and Aubrey grow increasingly suspicious of Anand and it turns out their fears are very real when he drugs them, steals Lena's credit cards and rips their passports. Lena's parents are furious with her and insist she return home to Boston immediately. However, Lena is now determined to travel to Bangkok and she convinces her father's secretary, Cara, to book them a flight. Little do Lena and Aubrey know that this decision has sealed their fate as they have fallen for the trap Charlie has set for them.

Discussion

Charlie, Presumed Dead is a psychological thriller told by the three main characters; Lena, Aubrey and Charlie. Lena and Aubrey's narratives alternate, while Charlie's occur at specific points in the story.

The premise behind Charlie, Presumed Dead involves two young women who discover they have been dating the same man. Suspecting he may have faked his own death, they set out to learn the truth. Clues lead them from Paris, to London, to Bombay and ultimately to Bangkok. Each woman is hiding a secret motivation behind wanting to find Charlie. However, in a terrible twist, not realizing Charlie's true character, the two women fall into the deadly trap he has set for them. This twist takes the unsuspecting reader completely by surprise, although Heltzel does begin to lay the pieces out for her readers, especially with the second person narratives of Charlie.

The premise would have been more believable as a young adult novel, if the women were older, perhaps in their mid-twenties. Heltzel partly gets around this by having Lena as the rich girl who is able to jet-set to the multiple locations in the story. This allows Aubrey, who is from a middle class, small mid-west town to play her part. Nevertheless, two young girls with an unlimited supply of money, who simply disappear from their families, to follow Charlie's trail through four countries, just doesn't seem plausible.

Despite this, Heltzel does a wonderful job of drawing her readers into the story, dropping hints here and there that suggest hidden motivations for each girl wanting to find Charlie. Initially the reader doesn't really know the full motivations for each girl's desire to track down Charlie. Lena admits "Grief isn't what's driving me to London, though. It's anger. If Charlie's alive, he needs to pay for what he's done to me." Aubrey is more interested in recovering her journal, which we learn later on, Charlie stole from her. In that journal, lies Aubrey's terrible secret which is revealed during a drugged-induced dream in Kerala. It is a secret she begged Charlie to keep.

These narratives reveal Charlie to be a very disturbed man, struggling to juggle his life with two women. As his life begins to unravel, Charlie plots revenge which he doesn't reveal until the later narratives. His sick enjoyment of each step of the revenge which involves the murder of one girl and the false imprisonment of the other are graphically portrayed. "You'll lead them right to it. Lambs to the slaughter; one lamb, anyway...Sometimes you don't care which one suffers, knowing one of them will. You go back and forth about which one it should be and it gives you a thrill...It's not the destruction itself that thrills you the most --though you're looking forward to it -- it's the exhilaration of watching them as they learn that you're alive and in control. It's their inevitable terror. It's perfect." The extent of Charlie's revenge is revealed in one of his last narratives. Charlie is revealed to be completely enraged over Aubrey's betrayal and her subsequent break-up with him. "You've made simple plans for Lena. She was a burden to be discarded. But Aubrey is going to suffer. For Aubrey, you've planned a fate far worse than death."

The novel's open ending leaves readers wondering if there will be a sequel. Is Lena really dead especially given the last narrative? If not, where is she? Will Aubrey be left to rot in the Thai prison? Thai authorities have her passport so they know she's American. Will they inform the US consulate of her imprisonment and the charges against her?  A disturbing novel that is better suited for college aged readers rather than teens, and for those who like psychological thrillers.

Book Details:

Charlie, Presumed Dead by Anne Heltzel
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt       2015
263 pp.

Deadfall by Anna Carey

Deadfall is an amazing suspenseful sequel to Carey's Blackbird. In the first novel "Sunny" who found herself inexplicably in Los Angeles with no previous memories of her life before, discovers she is part of a terrible game in which adults are hunting people for sport. The hunt has moved from an island which Sunny barely remembers, to various U.S. cities.The hunt is organized by A&A Enterprises (AAE) and consists of Watchers who keep track of the people being hunted making sure they are healthy and stay in a designated area, Stagers who tip off the hunters as to the location of the target and who clean up the dead bodies, and the hunters. The humans who are being hunted have been branded with a barcode tattoo on their wrists for identification.

Deadfall picks up where Blackbird left off. Sunny is preparing to board a train to Chicago when she runs into the boy she remembers from the island.  He tells her they are on the same train except he is going to New York and convinces her to go with him. On the train Sunny finds the private compartment that the boy has bought tickets for. He reveals to Sunny that they were supposed to meet up in San Francisco on the Friday of the second week. His memory returned and but Sunny's did not and she did not make the scheduled rendevous. When she doesn't remember he asks her why her memory has not returned when his has. The boy reveals his name as Rafe and hers as Lena Marcus. He tells her that they decided to meet in San Francisco because she has family there. Rafe also fills Lena in on what she told him about her life before the island - that her father died of a heart attack when she was fifteen and her mother abandoned her and her brother, Chris. She brought her brother to live with her aunt but eventually had to leave.

Rafe tells Lena that he is going to New York to find other "targets". Lena knows there are more targets in various cities across America because she saw pictures of the targets with code names next to different cities at an AAE meeting. While Rafe was waiting for Lena in San Francisco he found one other target, Connor in New York, who had also found one other target. Rafe explains how he was tricked into becoming a part of the hunt. He also explains to Lena how to successfully pickpocket a person, a skill that will lead later on to Lena making a crucial discovery.

At a McDonalds in New York, Lena discovers they are being watched by a hunter. Lena and Rafe manage to outwit the hunter and escape to the top of a building. While they are waiting, Lena continues to have dreams about the island. She tells Rafe about Ben, her Watcher in L.A. whom she fell for but who betrayed her. She also tells him about the police officer, Celia, whom she has told about the hunt. Rafe is shocked that Lena would trust the police but she tells him Celia believes her and is committed to helping her. Lena calls Celia who tells her that Izzy is recovering and that Goss is now in custody. But their case is not strong enough yet because Goss's lawyers are saying that he shot Izzy during a breakin to his house. Celia tells Lena that police found nothing in his house but that another body, that of a girl with a tattoo similar to Lena's has been found in Seattle. She's trying to prove now that this is much bigger than just Goss. Lena tells Celia that she's now in New York trying to find the other targets.

Lena and Rafe's hunt for Connor ends quickly when they discover that he has just been killed in a park. Rafe notices fresh graffiti, WBD + WY on a wall near Connor's body. They soon realize that they are being watched by a blond haired woman who along with a middle aged man begins pursuing them. Lena and Rafe split up, with Lena running into the subway and running onto the back of the last subway car. The woman manages to find Lena but before she can kill her Lena escapes onto the station platform and into the crowd. She finally escapes to a rooftop only to watch four hunters meet on the street below puzzled as to where she went. It is at this point that Lena realizes this is much bigger than just one hunter after her. They realize she was the one who turned in Goss and now they are determined to kill her.

Back in Los Angeles, Ben is being driven to the airport by someone from AAE but he has no idea what they want from him. A friend of Ben's father meets him at LAX and tells him that the girl he was watching has been spotted in New York. He wants Ben to find Lena for him and advises him to do everything AAE requests.

Lena heads to the library on Fifth Avenue where she posts an ad for Rafe on Craigslist, which is how he found Connor. Just before closing, Lena is found by Ben who insists he is there to help her. He tells her that he was sent to New York to locate her but that he now knows something terrible is going on. He became involved after his family discovered that his father, who did finances for Artemis & Acteon Enterprises, had been stealing money from the company. They offered Ben a job for a year in return for everything being forgiven. When Lena tells him what is actually going on Ben is shocked.

However Lena soon discovers that a hunter is in the library. The hunter corners Lena whom she calls "Blackbird" and is about to kill her when Ben intervenes, saving Lena. They flee to the Holiday Inn in Soho where they tend to Ben's shotgun wound, which turns out to be superficial. In the hotel room, Ben tells Lena that he found a cheque in his father's papers made out to Dr. Richard Reynolds, a neurologist at Bellevue Hospital. Reynolds ran drug trials for a memory suppressant drug funded by AAE that was used to treat soldiers suffering from PTSD. Lena now knows this is what she has been given so that she can't remember her past. She also determines that the graffiti near Connor's body is an address where the other targets meet. When she checks in with Celia in Los Angeles, she tells Lena that Goss was murdered in jail and that they need another suspect.

At West Broadway and Franklin, Lena and Ben find more graffiti, UR + HRE in the subway. They enter the tunnel and manage to meet up with Rafe who is upset about Ben's presence. They also meet more targets, Devon, Connor's girlfriend Salto, and Aggy. The group, after hearing about Dr. Reynolds, decide they need to track him down at Bellevue. Salto goes with Ben to the ER pretending to be sick, while Devon and Aggy watch the hallways and Rafe and Lena confront Dr. Reynolds.  Reynolds tells them that he was approached by a man who called himself Cal. He also tells them that there is a laudromat on Long Island in Hicksville, where he treated  several of the hunters and that it's used as a meeting place. The information that they received from Reynolds comes at a high price however, when Salto is shot through the shoulder.

At the Laundromat they confront a Stager named Krista Pollack who tells them that she overheard there is to be a meeting "on the ones". As Lena, Rafe and Ben pick up more clues that lead them closer to uncovering the truth about the hunt, the cat and mouse game with the hunters ramps up. Each clue leads Lena closer to a show down with the one man behind it all who will stop at nothing to save the hunt. Can Lena stop him and save herself and all the other targets?

Discussion

Deadfall is simply an exhilarating, action packed finale to Carey's duology.  As in Blackbird, Carey employs second person narration for each of the characters who tell a part of the story. It works very well because it places the reader at the center of the heartpounding action as it occurs.  Tension is maintained throughout the novel as readers experience the discoveries and revelations along with Lena, bit by bit. The slow reveal leads to a thrilling confrontation and a terrible twist. Although the main narrative is that of Lena, Carey does employ several other narrators including Ben Paxton, a hunter named Theodore Cross and Dr. Reynolds, all of whom use third person narration.  These narratives help fill in some of the back story for characters who reappear later on in the novel and allow for breaks in the fast pacing of the novel.

Besides the obvious suspense that develops as Lena, Rafe and Ben attempt to track down the people responsible for the hunt, Carey sets up a minor conflict between Ben and Rafe. Although Lena has a past with both guys, she doesn't know who to trust, Rafe who she can't really remember from the island or Ben who betrayed her yet took a bullet for her. When Rafe and the other targets want Ben to leave, Lena tells them they need his help.  "You look between Rafe and Ben. Rafe, who you have known for so long but hardly know at all. And Ben, who you thought betrayed you but who says he loves you. You believe him." Thankfully this triad does not really evolve into a love triangle because Lena remains focused on catching the person leading the hunt. 

Memorable scenes from this novel include the discovery by Lena and Rafe of Theodore Cross's hidden room and the depth of the evil he has perpetrated. On Cross's wall are thirty medallions, each one bearing the silhouette of a different animal and eight numbers and letters and representing a person Cross has killed. Another well written scene is the final confrontation between Cross and Rafe and Lena which lasts a full six chapters and is filled with many tense moments.

The main character, Lena Marcus is a strong, intelligent and resourceful young woman who is determined to stop the hunt and to not allow what she has experienced change her for the worse. Cross insists that he has made Lena who she is now but she tells him, "You didn't make me anything...I am more than you -- than your twisted, messed up game." When Cross tries to get her to shoot him by provoking her to anger, Lena doesn't bite, She knows what Cross is trying to do and she does what she has to. 


Deadfall is a gritty thriller with a heartbreaking but satisfying conclusion. Teens who are looking an exciting mystery/thriller novel will enjoy both of Carey's offerings in this duology.


Book Details:

Deadfall by Anna Carey
New York: HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollins    2015
243 pp.

Shadowlands by Kate Brian

At a first glance, Shadowlands by Kate Brian appears to be psychological thriller involving a serial killer. However, as the novel moves along, it morphs into a blend of horror and mystery that draws the reader in to the very end.

One day after school, Rory Miller takes a shortcut through the woods near her home, only to be stalked and attacked by her math teacher, Mr. Nell (isn't that every high schooler's nightmare!). In a stroke of luck, Steven Nell slips and Rory fights back, escaping to the road. There she is picked up by her new boyfriend, Christopher, who calls police. It turns out Nell is serial killer, Roger Krauss, who has murdered fourteen girls in the past decade and who has been the subject of an intensive FBI manhunt. The Miller's are ordered to remain sequestered in their home, because Nell has a history of murdering a girl's entire family when he fails to succeed in a first attempt. When police fail to catch Nell, and he demonstrates that he won't be denied Rory, the FBI decide to send the Miller's far away with new identities. But, Nell, notorious for his brilliance, continues to stalk the Millers.

Rory, along with her older sister, Darcy, and their father travel nonstop to Juniper Landing, an island off of South Carolina. During the trip, Rory falls asleep and has a nightmare involving Nell. When she wakes up she is still in the car with her Dad and Darcy, on the ferry to Juniper Landing.

Rory's relief at being on an island soon gives way to a vague unsettled feeling. The island has no phone or internet service and is often surrounding by a creeping fog that blocks out the mainland. Rory and Darcy meet a group of young people; Tristan and Krista whose mom is the mayor of the island, as well as Joaquin and Aaron. Rory's unease increases as she learns that Tristan is watching her from the house across the street.But when people begin disappearing and others on the island don't seem to remember their existence, Rory enters a state bordering on panic. Added to this are signs that Steven Nell has indeed followed Rory to Juniper Landing? Convinced that she and others are in grave danger, Rory begins pressing Tristan and Joaquin for answers. What is going on?

In many ways this novel was both bizarre and fascinating. The situations with the FBI and how they handled Rory's family lacked realism. Rory arrives home in Christopher's car to find her house surrounded by police cruisers while there doesn't seem to be any organized manhunt of the woods (using helicopters and infrared cameras for example) where Rory was attacked. One week after the attack, when their house is broken into, the FBI sends the Millers off on their own to an unknown destination, with new identities.

However, Brian does a great job at ramping up the suspense as Rory struggles to figure out what is happening, while also dropping the reader numerous clues. The presence of a methodical, brilliant killer, mysterious happenings on Juniper Landing, dense fog that seems to have a will of its own, and three deadly encounters with a serial killer keep the tension high.

The story is told mostly from Rory's point of view, but Brian occasionally adds a second narrator, that of the killer, Nell. His chapters are very well done, and especially creepy. Readers may guess at where Rory is and what's happened, but for most part, the ending is a surprise.

A great novel, with a puzzling cover that seems unsuited to the horror and suspense of the story.

The book trailer is well done:


Book Details:
Shadowlands by Kate Brian
New York: Hyperion    2012
328 pp.