Phoning a Dead Man - Hardcover

Grade 7 Up-Told that her older brother, a buildings demolition expert, has been killed in an accident in Russia, Hayley Cox accompanies his fianc‚e, Annie Glasgow, to see the sight firsthand. Not believing that she has been told the truth about the accident, Annie orchestrates the trip but needs Hayley to help her travel and maneuver in her wheelchair. Upon arriving in Russia, the young women are escorted by some influential Russian men that Annie suspects are involved in the Mafia, but she also realizes that she needs their resources to help them travel throughout the country. What Hayley and Annie don't know is that John is alive, with amnesia, in the wilderness of Siberia. He doesn't remember how he got there or why, but he knows that someone is out to kill him and that he must keep moving to avoid capture. As Hayley and Annie follow the lead provided by his mobile phone's satellite tracking system and head toward Siberia, John is traveling toward civilization searching for answers. In the end, after being captured by the Mafia, his memory returns to neatly tie up the loose ends of the story. The narrative, told in alternating chapters, moves along at a good pace. Filled with a variety of colorful characters and a suspenseful plot, it will keep even reluctant readers turning the pages.
Kim Carlson, Monticello High School, IA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Cross (Tightrope) wraps a haunting tale of spiritual rebirth in gripping, post-Soviet suspense. Devastated when her older brother, John, a demolition expert, is reported killed in an explosion in Siberia, Hayley agrees to accompany his wheelchair-bound fianc‚e, Annie, on a trip from England to the scene of the accident. As Hayley and Annie travel deeper into Siberia (in the company of gangsters and a mafia leader with his own deadly agenda), Annie discloses grounds for doubting John's death. Meanwhile, in the Siberian forest, simple-minded but kindly Frosya finds a wandering stranger amnesiac and ill and nurses him back to health. The nameless man's odyssey mirrors the life cycle and classic stages in moral and spiritual development. At first, the childlike Frosya spoonfeeds him, as if he were a baby, and teaches him to walk again; his next guides are a child, then an adolescent, and so forth until the introduction of a saintlike man who is willing to die for him. Appreciation of this novel doesn't require awareness of its allegorical underpinnings the plotting is tight, the foreign setting magnificently rendered and the characterizations intense. And those attuned to the inner narrative of resurrection and redemption can expect this book to resonate long after it is read. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.