The Ruinous Sweep
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A rainy night. An empty highway. And no memory. From award-winning author Tim Wynne-Jones comes a riveting murder mystery that will keep readers enthralled until the last page. On the night Donovan Turner is thrown out of a car on a highway in the middle of nowhere, he can barely remember his own name, let alone the past twenty-four hours. Where is he? Where is his girlfriend, Bee? In an attempt to flag down the next passing car, he startles the driver, causing a fatal accident. With sirens in the distance and the lingering feeling that he’s running from something — or someone — Donovan grabs the dead driver’s briefcase and flees. Meanwhile, Bee is fighting for Dono’s life every bit as much as he is. But when the police show up and hint that he is the prime suspect in a murder, Bee is determined to put together the pieces of what happened and clear his name. With echoes of Dante’s Divine Comedy, this harrowing journey through hell and back is a page-turning tale of guilt, retribution, love, and redemption.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Wynne-Jones's tense, eerie thriller that lightly draws from Dante's Inferno, 17-year-old Donovan Turner lies unconscious in a hospital after a hit-and-run left him gravely injured. His girlfriend, Beatrice "Bee" Northway, is at his side. While Donovan relives the events leading up to the accident in his mind (or, possibly, an otherworldly in-between place), Bee makes careful notes in her journal describing each sound that Donovan utters, hoping to piece together what may have happened. Then Donovan's father is found beaten to death with Donovan's baseball bat. After Bee's boyfriend becomes a suspect in the murder, she puts herself in considerable danger to prove to the police that he's innocent. Wynne-Jones cleverly employs elements of his trademark magical realism, and readers will enjoy making the connections between Bee's discoveries and Donovan's subconscious version of events; both versions are chilling. The courageous, clever Bee is a revelation, and her clear-eyed approach to finding the truth and her enduring love for Donovan, along with believably quirky characters and genuinely terrifying moments, will keep readers enthralled until the bittersweet finale.Ages 14 up.
