Although I have read a few of the books in this series, it has been a while and I am a bit fuzzy on the details of their lives. That didn’t stop me from being pulled into this story, however.
In Gun Games, Peter and Rina are hosting Gabriel Whitman, a fifteen-year-old, home-schooled piano prodigy whose mother and father are preoccupied with their individual lives. As the book opens, Gabe encounters a group of local bullies and finesses his way out of a confrontation with impressive cool, despite his internal panic. Decker, meanwhile, is meeting a woman who has come to the police questioning her own teenage son’s recent death, which has been labeled a suicide. She raises enough questions that Decker agrees to investigate, propelling him into looking at the same prep school gang that threatened Gabe.
The story moves back and forth between the police investigation and Gabe’s personal life, as he meets and falls in love with Yasmine, a fourteen-year-old Persian Jew who loves music as much as he does. Their first date is a clandestine trip to, of all places, the opera—a secret almost as much because Yasmine’s father doesn’t approve of her passion for music as for the fact that he most certainly would not approve of her spending time with a non-Jewish boy.
Although I am a few years removed from the teenage scene, I thought Kellerman did an admirable job of writing from the perspective of Gabe and Yasmine. I also appreciated how she wove the two plotlines together, letting you see how disconnected the adults were from their kids’ lives without making you feel like you were jumping between two different stories. This is a fascinating, although disturbing, tale that makes me thankful to have survived adolescence.
CONTENT NOTE: Even though the book centers on adolescents, it is definitely written for a mature audience. There is strong language as well as teenage sexual encounters, bullying and violence.
When she’s not too busy reading, Trish blogs at In So Many Words. A review copy of this book was provided by HarperCollins.
I’ve read a few in that series as well. I think they are a fun, quick read, and I like to pick them up as a bit of a breather between “heavier” titles.
I agree. Sometimes you need to just relax with a book that doesn’t make you work too hard. 🙂