From Publishers Weekly
Summertime and the living's uneasy for levelheaded English teacher Amanda Pepper (last seen in How I Spent My Summer Vacation). Not only has she reached a crossroads in her relationship with Philadelphia cop C.K. Mackenzie, but she has also been sentenced to teaching summer school at Philly Prep, where a series of assaults against minority students and faculty starts the session off badly. A black teacher's classroom is vandalized in an act that's clearly racially motivated; a Vietnamese boy is murdered in a drive-by shooting in front of the school; and Amanda's favorite student, April Tuong, disappears. As the number of incidents increases (eventually striking the English teacher, too), Amanda becomes convinced that the missing girl and the attacks are related, and that the culprit is connected with the school. Aside from a few instances of stiff dialogue, this outing is full of pleasures as the literate sleuth runs up against some all-American racists. The Anthony Award-winning Roberts gives Amanda an appealingly dry wit-perfectly suited for taking on bureaucratized political correctness and describing what it's like to stand in front of a roomful of less than motivated teenagers.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
"FULL OF PLEASURES . . . Roberts gives Amanda an appealingly dry wit."
--Publishers Weekly
While teaching summer school at exclusive Philly Prep, English teacher Amanda Pepper feels a sense of foreboding. First, a reading of Romeo and Juliet activates some very strange chemistry. Then the computer science teacher begins receiving anonymous go-back-to-Africa phone calls. A young Vietnamese boy dies in a drive-by shooting. And late one night, outside a Chinatown massage parlor, student April Tuong is kidnapped.
Random violence? Perhaps. But Amanda refuses to let gentle April vanish without at least asking a few questions, starting in her own classroom. Yet the truth, when she finds it, is appalling, deadly, and much too close to home. . . .
"Tart-tongued, warm-hearted Amanda's fifth case is as engaging as her others, and here she gets to do more detection than usual."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Gillian Roberts is a mystery reader's dream come true."
--Lia Matera
