A nonbinary teen is haunted by their father's serial killer past.The impact on Sid Atkinson of having a father in prison for being a serial killer has been crushing. Sid has changed their last name, lives with Gram in a trailer, and is visited by the ghosts of the five teenaged girls Dad murdered so gruesomely. Ten years after the first victim was killed, June Hargrove's body is found in the same lake as those of her predecessors. Sid knows their father didn't do it-he's serving time in prison-but the coincidence is triggering. As the body count ratchets up, and the patterns start to mirror their father's crimes, it becomes clear to Sid that a copycat is at work. Sid is willing to go to great lengths to discover who's murdering the teenage girls of Cardinal Creek, even going to see their father in prison for the first time in two years. Sid finds space, amid this recurring horror, to entertain a budding romance with mysterious new girl Mavis Hastings. But as Sid gets closer to the truth, their fear becomes conflated with the whispers of the ghosts, and people close to them end up in just as much danger as Sid is. This story moves at a fast pace, one so fast that Sid's inner turmoil-and quite possibly, the attention to their mental health-gets short shrift. Most characters are cued white.An absorbing, plot-driven, skin-crawling thriller. (Thriller. 13-18)

Gr 9 Up— In this thrilling new mystery by Tyndall, a nonbinary teen tries desperately to have a normal life, despite having a father who is a convicted serial killer. Sid knew their father could not be involved in the girls who have started disappearing from their small town of Cardinal Creek, at least not this time—he could not be involved because he is already in prison for killing five other girls a decade earlier. However, when the bodies begin to be found in the same condition their father left his victims, suspicion from local law enforcement and the townspeople forces Sid to finally confront their father about why he committed such terrible crimes. When Sid's former best friend Sally Louise and their current love interest Mavin are both taken by the killer, along with Sid, the mystery of who is committing the recent murders and the connection to Sid's father are ultimately explained. Relationships are at the heart of this novel, and Tyndall excels at depicting the nuances of character development as well as the intricacies of personal motivations in interpersonal relations with a cast of diverse characters. VERDICT Hand to fans of Ellie Marney's None Shall Sleep and Jennifer Lynn Barnes's "The Naturals" series.— Susan Catlett