I just finished Kevin Brooks' The Road of the Dead. I've read other Brooks novels and liked them very much. (See What Mrs N's Been Reading - Being for my review of Being. I also liked Martyn Pig a lot, but read that one pre-blog.) Brooks is interesting. His characters are definitely very flawed people, and not always what you would ordinarily call good guys, but I find myself rooting for them as I read, and really caring what happens to them. In this one, Ruben and his brother Cole go to the remote village where their sister Rachel was brutally murdered, to try to find out what happened so that her body can be released for burial. Ruben is a sensitive guy who can sense other people's feelings, especially family members. On the night Rachel was murdered, Ruben was "with her," feeling her panic and fear and seeing the area around her, but not the murderer. Cole is more like his father, who is in prison for killing a man in a bare knuckle fight. In the village, there is definitely something going on that involves almost everyone there, and everyone knows more than they are letting on about the murder, but can Cole and Ruben get answers without getting killed? There is a lot of violence in the book, and little bit of salty language, but all things considered, it's handled very well, and isn't unnecessarily graphic. I'd recommend this one to high school students, and will probably come back and read a few more of the Brooks' titles that are on the shelf.
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