School Library JournalGr 8 Up—The night before what promises to be a long, hot, and probably boring summer, Nora and her best friend, Ellie, go to an end-of-the-school-year party. The girls, along with their friends Cheryl and Bobby Jo, stride into the park in their short shorts and Keds for an evening of listening to Elvis Presley, drinking first beers, and exchanging sloppy kisses in the dark. In the morning Nora and Ellie, nursing first-time hangovers, decline to walk with Cheryl and Bobby Jo, but finish their breakfasts instead. But as the day goes on the girls wonder where their friends are-they never showed up at school. Finally, their whereabouts are revealed when a group of classmates bolt out of the woods near the park yelling, "They're dead!" This haunting novel alternates narrators to give voices to naïve 17-year-old Nora; the mysterious perpetrator of this hideous crime who dubs himself "Mister Death" (in homage to e.
