CM Magazine: The Body in the Basement.

________________ CM . . . . Volume IV Number 13 . . . . February 27, 1998

cover The Body in the Basement.
Norah McClintock.
Richmond Hill, ON: Scholastic Canada, 1997.
208 pp, paper, $4.99.
ISBN 0-590-24983-5.
Subject Headings:
Murder-Juvenile fiction.
False arrest-Juvenile fiction.
Parents-Death-Juvenile fiction.
Grades 7 - 9 / Ages 12 - 14.
Review by Marsha Kaiserman.
** 1/2 /4

excerpt:

But ... "If the police are so convinced my father's the murderer," she said, "then they aren't going to spend much time looking for whoever the real murderer is."

I suppose one of our more secret desires is to have the opportunity to solve some murder or other serious crime. How else could you explain the popularity of all those crime novels? If this holds true for adults, why not then for adolescents? Scholastic Books, believing that there is a market for such books, has published The Body in the Basement, the story of the quest of Tasha (Natasha) Scanlan to solve the murder of her mother and, in the process, free her accused father. As in all such books, she is aided by an assistant, Jace Bhupal.

While this book contains most of the plot cliches available to a mystery writer, for a young reader unfamiliar with this genre, The Body in the Basement is an exciting entry into the world of mystery novels. Using the terse style so common to this literary form, Norah McClintock has written a good mystery novel, and her use of a teenage girl as the heroine is a particularly good touch.

Recommended.

Marsha Kaiserman is Head of Monographs Cataloguing at Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) in Ottawa.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - FEBRUARY 27, 1997.