“Devil’s Footsteps,” by E.E. Richardson (Delacorte, 184 pages, $15.95)
Wired tighter than a piano, this first novel creates an ominous, relentless aura of fear in a nearly flawless ghost story. For generations, a malefic 13-part chant has held the village of Redford in thrall. The rhyme seems entwined with the violent disappearances of Redford children and their parents’ collective, Stepford-like amnesia.
Bryan, whose older brother vanished screaming as he leapt on the last of 13 stepping stones associated with the baneful chant, apprehensively joins two other boys to investigate the legendary bogeyman linked to this evil.
As they draw closer to the truth, the borders of their tranquil town expand and contract into a nightmare landscape. Their worst fears come to life, real enough for claws to draw blood. Yet the adults remain oblivious, maintaining their own Twilight Zone equanimity.
Bryan’s quest forces an awful choice between reaching out to his dead brother and denying his brother’s plea for help. Readers with overactive imaginations would do best to absorb Richardson’s tense thriller in one sitting. Ages 12 and up.
“The Ghost’s Grave,” by Peg Kehret ( Dutton Juvenile, 192 pages, $16.99)
The spirit here is Willie, a one-legged miner and casualty of a 1903 mine explosion who cannot let gravity fully take him until being reunited with his amputated, and separately buried, leg.
He appears to Josh, a 12-year-old reluctantly spending the summer with his Luddite of a great-aunt, who possesses neither microwave oven nor dishwasher, and lives in a remote former mining town in the Northwest. Willie entreats Josh to dig up the buried leg and re-inter it with the rest of Willie’s remains.
Less shaken by encountering a ghost than by the illegal and unappetizing prospect of grave digging, Josh eventually talks himself into this peculiar act of altruism. When he begins digging up the leg’s grave, Josh finds a mysterious lockbox, galvanizing a thrilling, if improbable, subplot. Ages 9 and up.
“Tenderness” by Robert Cormier (Random House, 299 pages, $7.99)
As taut as Cormier’s groundbreaking “The Chocolate War,” the apprehension ratchets up by the page in this story about Eric, a young serial killer and Lori, a psychologically disturbed young girl who becomes obsessed with him.
Their inevitable meeting spins into a bizarre two-step monitored by a detective waiting to pounce on Eric in flagrante delicto. But Lori’s obsession seems to abrade Eric’s evil pathology. Will she rescue him or doom him? Or both? Ages 13 and up.
“Inexcusable” by Chris Lynch (Simon & Schuster, 165 pages, $16.95)
Using the voice of his protagonist, a high school football kicker whose testosterone-addled ego bypasses whatever moral code he once knew, Lynch illustrates how a rapist tries to justify his actions.
Young Keir defends himself as a hero, even after accidentally crippling a boy on the opposing team. Buoyed by the adulation of friends and his alcoholic father, he convinces himself he can do no wrong. When the girl he adores accuses him of rape, Keir cannot comprehend the gulf between the reality he invents for himself and the facts of what really happened.
This ought to be required reading for adolescents. Ages 13 and up.
“Teach Me,” by R.A. Nelson (Razorbill, 272 pages, $16.99)
A horror story for parents, as well as young adults, this novel tells of a high school girl’s affair with her young male teacher. Upon discovering that her lover is engaged, and that the fiancée is pregnant, the student plots a revenge that John Waters and Stephen King might envy.
How the affair evolved consumes most of the story, a tale of a trustful brainiac mature beyond her years and a weak-willed man whose southern regions lag in sensibility far behind his northern half. It’s easy, and terrifying, to see how little it would take for the pieces to fall in place. This is another must-read for teens. And parents – especially adults who convince themselves that their adolescent children are invincible to sex. Ages 14 and up.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
