Comments for Dead End

Dead End: 06/30/10

When I was new BookCrossing, I signed up for a bunch of different book boxes. A book box is just as it sounds: a box full of books, but each book is registered with the site. If one wants a book out of the box, one must replace it with a different book. One of the books I claimed from a box happened to be Dead End by Helen R. Myers. I grabbed it for the blurb on the back.

Dead End starts out strong. A postal carrier making her rounds finds a bloody handprint on the newly installed "dead end" sign on the road leading to the Pugh Farm. The Pughs have a bad reputation but her first thought is that either her son or his best friend were down this road to play a prank. When one of the boys doesn't come home, she begins to think the handprint might be something more sinister.

A missing child (even a teen) and one with a mother who is too busy to be all that interested in her child put a bad taste in my mouth. Things got worse moving from a who-done-it to discussions of pedophilia.

All these subplots about broken families and child abuse ended up being filler and failed attempts at red herrings. The book as a whole leaves me feeling dissatisfied and somewhat dirty.

books | Helen R. Myers | mystery | 2001

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