ALA Booklist

In rural Ontario, Jim's father has vanished without a trace. He and his mother are trying to keep the farm that has been in his family for generations, but they're barely hanging on. Jim is by turns horrified, scandalized, and enraged by Ruth Rose, a deeply troubled teen who, when off her meds, spins wild stories of her stepfather's dark past, accusing him of murdering Jim's dad. Her stepfather is the deeply respected town pastor, and a lifelong friend of Jim's father. Ruth Rose pricks something inside Jim, however, and he begins to investigate fragments of a story from his father's youth, about a local drunken arsonist who went up in smoke with an abandoned house full of hay. The tale spins out taut as a bow string. People remember things; no one will listen to the tightly wound Ruth Rose; Jim struggles to think things through battling his own overwhelming emotions. Scary, absorbing, with a thrilling denouement.

Horn Book

Jim Hawkins's father vanished two years ago. The loss is still unresolved, but Ruth Rose, the pastor's stepdaughter, has begun to make accusations about Father Fisher. This suspenseful story is set among the complex inhabitants of a farming community, where a pastor controls his flock with great cunning and a staunch but twisted view of his own faith. A gripping, fast-moving plot offers the pure adrenaline rush of a thriller.

Kirkus Reviews

Old sins come home to roost in this taut, terrifying psychological thriller, set largely on an isolated Canadian farm. Fourteen-year-old Jim has gotten past more-than-half-serious suicide attempts and an episode of mutism in the wake of his beloved father's sudden disappearance. But the pain is still sharp enough to leave him vulnerable when tough, wild teenager Ruth Rose suggests a connection between that disappearance and her stepfather, popular local minister Father Fisher. She herself claims to be in danger. According to Fisher, Ruth Rose is mentally and emotionally unbalanced (skittish, violent, and subject to sudden mood swings, she certainly acts the part)—but she plants a seed in Jim that grows into suspicion, as he finds revealing family photos, learns from old newspaper accounts of a fire that claimed a boy's life, and catches hints of an ugly side to Fisher that his congregation never sees. As Ruth Rose knows and Jim discovers, Fisher makes a scary adversary: brilliant, plausible, utterly ruthless, able to play on Jim's grief like a musical instrument. As it turns out, Fisher has more than one terrible secret to hide, but the young people here are so overmatched that the tale loses some credibility when he allows himself to be caught in a conventional climactic standoff with police. That bit of contrivance aside, Wynne-Jones ( Stephen Fair , 1998) weaves a strong, sensitively observed cast, plus themes of inner conflict, unlikely friendships, and the enduring power of hate, into a powerful tale that will grip readers from start to finish. (Fiction. 11-15)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

"The author builds an action-packed thriller around the mysterious disappearance of a Canadian farmer as his son digs into the past to reveal a succession of secrets," said <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">PW. Ages 10-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Sept.)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9 A Band-Aid of silence has protected Jim since his dad vanished two years earlier. Now a voice begins to pick away at his scab. Ruth Rose with her wild, dyed-black hair, nose ring, and history of uncontrolled anger and mental breakdowns says some things to him that he can't dismiss as sheer crazy talk. She tells him that Father Fisher killed his dad. Father Fisher was one of Dad's best friends, and he's Ruth Rose's stepfather. The pastor's voice soothes away Jim's misgivings. He is the well-respected pillar of the community, and his friendship with Jim's dad goes back to their youth and a town tragedy that bound them to secrecy. Now someone is trying to resurrect the past. Blackmail has unleashed the dangerous actions of a desperate man. Jim, slowly recovering from the trauma of his father's disappearance, isn't sure that Ruth Rose is for real. Her prodding smacks him with the pain that he's effectively pushed away. When Father Fisher's behavior becomes increasingly odd and menacing, Jim's friendship with this bad-tempered girl becomes sure. While the plot develops as a murder-mystery, the underlying suspense pivots around the terror with which Ruth Rose and her mother are forced to live. The conflict builds methodically, waiting for Father Fisher to make his final play. The strengths and weaknesses in human relationships are consistently well drawn, yet the systematic introduction of so many characters from the past breaks the flow of the plot, sometimes slowing down its momentum. Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NY