by Alicia Rudnicki, Library Mix

The Christopher Killer, by Alane Ferguson, Penguin, 2006,
ISBN 0-670-06008-9
Available at Powell's Books
The Angel of Death, by Alane Ferguson, Penguin, 2006,
ISBN 0-670-06055-0
Available at Powell's Books
The Circle of Blood, by Alane Ferguson, Penguin, 2008,
ISBN 0-142-41267-8
Available at Powell's Books
The Dying Breath, by Alane Ferguson, Penguin, 2009,
ISBN 0-670-06314-2
Available at Powell's Books



Cameryn Mahoney, the star of Alane Ferguson's teen forensic mysteries, is a modern day Nancy Drew who knows more about body bags and toe tags than she does about shoulder bags and toe rings. She is pretty, but also pretty strange in the eyes of her small town high school classmates in the southwestern Colorado hamlet of Silverton. That’s because she spends a significant amount of time with dead bodies.

Young, gifted, and. . . ghoulish?
A science geek passionate about studying forensics, 17-year-old Cameryn talks her father, the town coroner, into letting her be his assistant at the beginning of The Christopher Killer, the first in Alane Ferguson’s young adult series of forensic mysteries.

After all, Cameryn reads forensic books voraciously and always helps her father prepare the family station wagon — which doubles as the coroner’s hearse — before he picks up bodies for autopsies.

But rejection by other teens is only a small aspect of the social milieu in Cameryn's forensic mystery adventures. One of the pleasant curiosities of Ferguson’s novels is that they contain interesting adults who are important to the teen detective of the dead. They include a grandmother who disapproves of Cameryn's interests as being ghoulish and inappropriate for a girl, a handsome but brash young deputy who is mysteriously connected to her long-gone mother, and the local medical examiner, who Cameryn admires despite his rudeness.

Scientific skepticism and a paranormal pursuit
Cameryn has a quick mind, a sharp eye for detail, and a sense of scientific skepticism so powerful that it is near religious. Yet her best friend and “pseudo sibling” Lyric is retro new age and a firm believer in the paranormal.

In The Christopher Killer, it isn’t long before Cameryn finds herself  assisting at the autopsy of  a friend who appears to be the victim of a serial murderer.

The sheriff targets pale, gawky Adam, a teenager who always dresses in black, as a prime suspect.  Adam's lone-wolf persona is disagreeable to Cameryn partly because of her own unpopularity. But she feels certain the town’s only emo-Gothic teen didn’t do it, even if he does give her the creeps.

Cameryn reluctantly gives in to Lyric’s plan to rescue Adam by meeting with a famous TV psychic who claims he can contact their dead friend. Meanwhile, Cameryn is wary of everyone from the psychic to the town’s new deputy sheriff who has “dancing” green-blue eyes.

Nancy Drew was never in this much danger
Nancy Drew move over! A new girl — or, as Cameryn would demand, “woman” —  has tiptoed up the hidden staircase and onto the bookshelves of young female readers looking for adventure. Similar to Nancy Drew, she even has two sidekicks, in the form of plump Lyric and gaunt Adam.

Unlike Drew, Cameryn Mahoney never intended to be a sleuth. Instead, the melancholy teen is driven by a compulsion to “speak for the dead” through science and help them find justice. By the end of Ferguson’s fourth novel, The Dying Breath, Cameryn has solved four grisly mysteries and come perilously close to dying each time.

Sequels to 'The Christopher Killer'
The second novel in the series, The Angel of Death, opens with one of Cameryn’s classmates, a handsome athlete and Eagle Scout, discovering the corpse of a popular high school teacher.

The problem of teen girls being forced into polygamous marriages is at the center of the next novel, The Circle of Blood.

By the fourth novel, The Dying Breath, Cameryn is virtually a prisoner in her own home. Family, friends and local law enforcement are trying to protect her from a pathological murderer who just happens to be her former boyfriend.

Ferguson doesn't dumb down forensic science, but makes  the detailed process of a coroner's inquest  understandable and riveting. Young adult readers will find Cameryn Mahoney's life as fascinating as it is frightening.