The Girl Is Trouble

Gr 7–10—Set in New York City in the early 1940s, 15-year-old Iris Anderson, the daughter of a private detective who lost a leg in the war, is still reeling from her mother's suicide a year earlier when she discovers evidence that the death might have been murder. Along with her faithful friend, Pearl, Iris also solves a case at school, following a trail of anonymous anti-Semitic hate letters sent to the school's Jewish group. Haines does a fantastic job of recreating WWII era New York and spinning a wonderful noir mystery in this sequel (2012) to The Girl Is Murder (2011, both Roaring Brook). Whle the clues fall into Iris's lap a little too easily, the brilliant secondary characters steal the story, including Benny, the bad boy love interest, and Iris's quirky landlady. Narrator Rachel Botchan makes Iris a believable teen, voicing 1940s slang with ease, yet her adult characters and foreign accents are somewhat less harmonious. Still, this is a welcome addition to historical fiction collections.—Sandi Jones, Augusta High School, AR