Silo Boys

Addy still hasn’t gotten over the loss of her good friend, Beau, who died two years ago under mysterious circumstances, as well as the disappearance of Addy’s boyfriend, Mason, who vanished just after Beau’s death. It had all been too much, and she was still having trouble moving on, but had made progress and could see a flicker of light at the end of her tunnel of sadness. When she comes out of school one day in April, she finds an envelope stuck under the wiper on her Jeep. The handwriting is unmistakable. It is from Mason, and the note says he needs to talk to her. Talk to her! She hasn’t seen or heard from him in two years. But this is the beginning of a new chapter in the mystery Addy has been haunted by all that time. Before Addy is able to meet with Mason, he is murdered. The police start looking at everything from Beau’s death and Mason’s disappearance all over again, but Addy isn’t satisfied they are doing enough. She can’t seem to help herself from doing her own investigation, digging around in the pasts of her best friend, Charlie, Beau’s former girlfriend, and Hunter, the fifth wheel in the Beau-and-Charlie and Mason-and-Addy group that had done everything together for so long. This is further complicated by the fact that Charlie and Hunter are now dating. For Addy, everyone is a suspect, and she is relentless in her endeavors, even though her poking around brings up a lot of terrible memories, not only for herself, but for everyone she contacts, including Beau’s little sister. Soon it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want Addy or anyone else trying to uncover what really happened, and Addy and others find themselves under frightening threat. Can Addy ever find out what really happened? And can she survive to uncover the truth?

Amy-Brooke Odell has written a compelling mystery for young adults with an interesting cast of characters. Addy and the other young characters in the book act quite like normal teenagers in thinking they are in control and making good decisions when it is clear to the readers that it is not the case. Addy’s voice (told in first person) is quite natural and, from her point of view, shows her typical teen thinking that is not quite adult enough to keep her from making foolish mistakes. There is a raw reality to this character and in the writing, which is quite good. A round of developmental editing might help with some of the holes. There is an old rule of thumb in writing that if a gun is going to go off in the third act, it had better be hanging over the mantle in the first act. In other words, there should be an ah-ha moment, but not a shock or surprise when the mystery is revealed. Unfortunately, this book has a real shocker at the end. Otherwise, this is quite good and will garner some favor among young readers.