From Publishers Weekly
This engrossing thriller, published in Britain before the author's death last year, takes a stretched premise and turns it into an absorbing psychological story. Just after 18-year-old Lucy graduates from school, her widowed father orders her to disappear for her own safety. He is about to expose a big government crime, but can give her no details lest he implicate her as a conspirator. Dressed up in her dead mother's clothes, armed with a briefcase full of money, Lucy settles in a small town outside Manchester. Pursuing a longtime passion, she starts up an antiques shop, in time befriending a host of affable eccentrics who eventually save her life. Granted, the plot has some weaknesses-it will not be lost on the audience that Lucy could have avoided her precarious position had she simply left the country; the outcome of the story relies a bit too heavily on the benevolence of one policeman; and the "big secret" is slightly anticlimactic. But Westall (In Camera and Other Stories; Yaxley's Cat) effectively draws the reader into Lucy's thought patterns and fears; as she listens intently for sounds of strangers in the night, or rehashes her meager store of information, she becomes compellingly real. The author cleverly parallels political intrigue with the milder suspense of bidding on antiques, Lucy's confusion over her mother's death with her assumption of her mother's personality as a disguise. Greater depth can be found here than in most entries in the genre. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up?A lightweight thriller from Britain. After Lucy's mother dies, her civil-servant father begins acting oddly; it seems he's uncovered evidence of terrible wrongdoing within the British government. To ensure his teenaged daughter's safety while he prepares to blow the whistle, he arranges for her to vanish, which she does by becoming an antique dealer in an isolated little village. The book's appeal lies not so much in its limp plot, but in the Robinson Crusoe-like details of the heroine hiding out and building a life of her own. The last 30 pages explode into an unlikely series of car crashes, shootings, and a worldwide scandal. Fine development of character and setting, however, make the story worthwhile entertainment overall.?Kathy Fritts, Jesuit High School, Portland, OR
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
