Your teen loves mysteries, but your weathered Agatha Christies are too old-school for her.
Then try Kimberly Reid’s “Creeping with the Enemy,” a mystery set in a school with a street-smart sleuth lead by 15-year-old Chanti Evans, who’s an ace at wedding through lies.
When Chanti and her new friend Bethanie witness a robbery at a tamale place, Chanti knows something is off. It took place on freebie Friday, and the restaurant’s buy-one-get-one-free offer usually means a line out the door. But for some reason, on this particular Friday, no one was there. And Chanti noticed.
She also noticed a creepy guy flirting with Bethanie. There was something really off about him. He acted weird — like he was some kind of hero — when the gunman entered the restaurant, when, in reality, he almost got everybody killed.
After the gunman fled the scene, Chanti searched the area for clues, but found nothing. Worse of all, she can’t even ask her mom, Lana — who’s a cop — for help figuring things out because she wasn’t supposed to be in the tamale place’s dangerous neighborhood.
Chanti also starts to realize that her friend Bethanie’s life seems to be one gigantic fib — especially when she discovers that Bethanie is actually dating the creep from the restaurant.
The more Chanti finds out, the more everybody hates her snooping. But what else can she do?
Reid gives Chanti brains, maturity, and a sense of humor without making her too much of a good-girl type. That, and the novel’s real-life, conversational dialogue lend authenticity to the book, which will keep savvy 12- to 17-year-old readers from tossing this book aside.
This teen novel is the third in a series, and while it could be read first, your teen will appreciate the characters better if she starts from the beginning. Start there, and “Creeping with the Enemy” will be a mystery she’ll have no trouble enjoying.
“Creeping with the Enemy” by Kimberly Reid [256 pages, 2012, $9.95].
Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old, and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill with two dogs and 12,000 books.
