Death in Kingsport Book

Kingsport, a small town on the shores of Lake Ontario, is struggling through the fall and winter of 1941 in the aftermath of the Great Depression. For fifteen-year-old Neil, life is simple and routine, until his favorite uncle, Chester, suddenly dies, and he is engulfed by an aching loneliness. At his uncle’s cremation aboard a freighter in the harbor, Neil has a strange sense of foreboding as he inadvertently hears a thumping sound inside the coffin. Could Uncle Chester be alive?

And so begins a chain of events that take the reader along in Neil’s quest to get to the bottom of his uncle’s death. When a disembodied voice in an old stable reveals that Chester’s passing is not the only mysterious death in town, Neil, along with his quirky sidekick, Graham, is catapulted to action. Meet Crescent, who captures Neil’s heart and provides vital clues, the suspicious Doc Savage and his questionable experiments, and the steadfast Miss Trimble, whose knowledge of the town’s inhabitants goes back years.

From strange happenings in the Amazon jungle to a near-death experience to getting lost on the ice when a storm erupts, Curtis Parkinson’s Death in Kingsport is a fast-paced murder mystery in a town where nothing is as it seems.

Children's Literature

This book does a great job of capturing the post-Great Depression era. The primary focus is local. Effects of the Depression are everywhere, as are signs of recovery. National and international politics are distant events that help capture the flavor of the times. There is discussion of the impact of World War II and the modernization of the area. The main character, Neil, is a likeable teenager who willingly sets out on a hero s journey with the help of his intellectual friend, Graham. They set out to investigate the suspicious death of Neil s uncle. Because Neil is an everyman, the normal teen angst is not present. In fact, such angst would be inappropriate for the era. Rather, the book focuses on resolving the plot issues. The plot was well-paced and engaging with an interesting secondary plot and a romantic-without-a-chance-to-get-mushy-interest. Readers will find this to be an enjoyable book to read even if they are outside of the target age group. Reviewer: Mary Ashcliffe