From Booklist
Gr. 6-9. The plot may not be entirely watertight, but fans of melodramatic crime dramas will suck up this rain-soaked page-turner in the Traces series. Set in a decrepit alternate or future London where whites are a persecuted minority, the story features teenage forensic investigator Luke Harding and his robot sidekick. Called on to look into a doctor's murder, Luke finds himself trailing a serial killer into a world of slums, exotic snakes, and an illegal Brown Supremacist cult that meets in the decaying Underground. While folding in plenty of action and on-stage violence, Rose calls on his background as a chemistry professor to provide specific scent and residue clues, and gives Luke an amusingly literal-minded robot companion, a clever foe, and a subplot involving a love interest before wrapping things up with a dose of just deserts. The offbeat but well-envisioned locales bode well for future episodes. See
Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman on p.1796 for another take on a society where minority roles are reversed.
John PetersCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
In the rotting slums of London, Luke and Malc are called to investigate the shocking murder of an attractive young doctor. The investigation eventually leads Luke to a bizarre cult called the World Church of Eternal Vision whose members believe that the entire medical profession is interfering with creation. More doctors are murdered, and the pressure mounts on Luke and Malc to find the perpetrators before its too late.