The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore

Joan Lowery Nixon now has four books published in the Freeway series and they all have a similar speed of narrative and use of mystery with some neat twists of plot. Again, the character is played with (as the reader is too) and caught. We wait for the kidnapping to happen but Lowery Nixon is expert at playing with expectations and it's almost 40 pages and some mock climaxes before the event occurs. The expected climax of the rescue only deepens the mystery. Police and family are convinced that Christina set it all up. The second half becomes a nicely complicated attempt to find the person close to her who has deceived her. Seeds of doubt are sown about all the relevant characters and there is a brief sense of impossible complexity before the final resolution. A book which satisfyingly makes a bridge to adult writing.