Dead Connection by Charlie Price

Here's a new review I wrote for my children's lit class.

Murray is just your average teenage boy. Average, that is, if every teen boy hangs out in cemeteries and talks to the dead. Murray doesn’t just talk to the dead though, he considers them his best and only friends. When Murray starts to hear a new voice hanging around the graveyard, he struggles to figure out from where and from whom it is coming.

Pearl’s dad works as the groundskeeper at the cemetery where Murray makes friends. She doesn’t like Murray at first sight, in fact she hates him, but as they get to know each other, a tentative friendship forms. Together these two outsiders look into the mystery of the disembodied voice. Could it be Nikki, the cheerleader who’s been missing for months?

Their story is interspersed with those of Billup, the creepy public affairs officer, who likes nothing more than to terrorize Murray, Gates, the cop who is assigned to Nikki’s case, and Robert Barry, a schizophrenic ex-con who may have witnessed Nikki’s abduction.

These stories intersect flawlessly to tell the story of Murray, Pearl and their search to find the missing girl. It’s a great mystery, very readable and interesting. I really enjoyed reading it. I would most certainly recommend it to any mystery fans out there. I love that mystery is becoming more and more popular in YA literature. I think it's a genre that has a lot to offer and I think and hope that Price will keep adding to that genre in the future.