A tiny pistol, passed from friend to friend at a party on an abandoned pier, suddenly fires, and Casey Carmody falls into the water below. Kurt, Casey's older brother, endures a seemingly endless night at the police station while the coast guard searches for his sister and his friends are questioned, one by one.Who was foolish enough to pull the trigger? Was the gunfire accidental or deliberate? Or was the whole drama one of Casey's practical jokes? And where is Casey--or her body--now?Dark secrets are revealed and petty jealousies rear their ugly heads as each eyewitness comes to the questioning room with his or her own version of "the truth." Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

As the book opens, 17-year-old narrator Kurt Carmody recounts his sister's disappearance from a dune party, where she was last seen on the abandoned pier on one of New Jersey's barrier islands. Someone brought a gun to the party; several partygoers heard the sound of a shot, and Casey vanished from the end of the pier-no trace of blood, no body. Kurt finds a quiet corner of the police station where he can overhear the cops' interrogations of the high school students who were at the party, each teen's answers throwing suspicion in a new direction. Through Kurt's first-person narrative, Plum-Ucci (The Body of Christopher Creed) addresses peer pressure and the chasm between social strata in this beachside town. Suspects include Stacy Kearney (the "Fallen Queen type"), granddaughter of the island's wealthiest man, who is allegedly pregnant, and Stacy's ex-boyfriend Mark Stern, who had just started dating Casey. All the members of this loosely connected community harbor secrets they do not want to be revealed. But in the end, someone's secret comes to light with devastating consequences. Ages 12-up. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr 9 Up-It's the middle of the night in a small New Jersey beach town, and Kurt Carmody, 17, has questions about what happened minutes ago at the pier, when a shot was heard and his 15-year-old sister, Casey, plunged (or dove?) off and disappeared. Why did erratic Stacy Kearney bring a gun to the pier-and why are so many of Kurt's friends eager to point the finger at her? What does any of it have to do with rumors that Stacy is pregnant and that Casey's boyfriend may be the father, or that Stacy's pig of a father is a blight on the town and her rich mother a cheating drug addict? Kurt's hour-by-hour narration takes readers from the town's police station to the pitch-black beach, where choppers search the waters. In classic crime-fiction style, Kurt pieces together the night, eavesdropping on statements, questioning key figures, and trying to make sense of Stacy's increasingly disturbing backstory-all the while questioning human nature, his friendships, and his post-high-school plans. Plum-Ucci struggles with pace early on, and her supporting characters are one-dimensional. While the mystery is engrossing and the dramatic ending satisfying, if overdone, it is Kurt's emotional growth that forms the heart of the story and has the most to offer readers. Fans of the author's novels or crime fiction in general will welcome this addition to the genre.-Riva Pollard, The Winsor School Library, Boston Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

A shot rings out at a beach party. A girl falls backward--or dives forward--into the water and disappears. Her older brother, Kurt, remains in the police station all night anxious for word and spying on those who come to give their statements. The thread running through the speculations and accusations is Stacy Kearny, a poor little rich girl, whose explosive family secrets make her a prime suspect in the shooting. Plum-Ucci returns to a familiar topic--a missing young person and the questions raised by the disappearance--to explore class prejudice, teen cruelty, and loyalty between friends. There's no doubt Plum-Ucci can tell a heck of a story. But there are chinks in the narrative's armor: characters tend to sound the same, and the one-way mirror in the station that enables Kurt to spy on the witnesses sticks out like the device that it is. Still, readers will be turning pages as new information is dispensed in each chapter, moving and changing the story in unexpected ways. They'll race to the ending and won't guess it until they get there. --Ilene Cooper Copyright 2006 Booklist From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.