Teen Crime Fiction from Francesca Padilla, WHAT'S COMING TO ME

Drugs, crime, poverty, and a dying mother—17-year-old Minerva Guitiérrez has a job at an ice cream shop that comes with off-the-books payments, a creepy boss, and, as this fast-paced thriller opens, a terrifying attack by violent thieves attacking the cash business. So how can she possibly cope with all the lousy cards that life has dealt her?

Francesca Padilla's writing arrives with enormous integrity and realism: There are no easy solutions to Min's problems. Just as her mother is definitely going to die, Min is definitely going to suffer from the bad choices she makes, typical at first of any other teen, then increasingly dangerous. 

Yet Min's strikingly clear-sighted about how she's boxed herself in:

If I'd told Mom about the hiring process and the cameras back when I first started at Duke's and she was still home, she would've stormed Anthony's office and dragged him into the street. She and Nicole always swore the women in our family have a secret brute strength in times of great distress.

But I have never told her how messed up my job or Anthony truly is. I was too relieved to have found a job at all—and even though she never said it out loud, Mom was relieved, too.

So she can't risk losing her job, can she? You already know, even if she doesn't, that the only solutions available will need her to collaborate with her friends and allies. But for a prickly teen, that's going to be almost as dark and risky as the crimes surrounding her.

Teens tend to "read older" than they are, so go ahead and share this or buy it specifically for the teen in your life. Then make sure to fit in some discussion time. We need less nightmares in our lives as we grow up—Min needs to open up, and so do the young readers of this well-written and challenging novel.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

New YA Mystery, Worth Reading: ASK ME by Kimberly Pauley

Kimberly Pauley shouldn't need much reassurance -- her track record (mostly for teens) already shines and sings. But her author website (http://www.kimberlypauley.com) has the feel of someone still hesitant to trust the fates.

She should probably just relax and enjoy what she's earned. ASK ME is a tight, intriguing, and totally teen-ready mystery with just the right amount of paranormal and a balanced blend of not belonging and suddenly finding a first boyfriend. Or two.

Right from the start, it's clear Aria has a "gift." Her grandparents, who gave up their comfy retirement home in order to find a more rural place to raise her after her mom deserted her, know she has this "prophecy" ability. It's no surprise: So did her grandmother when she was a girl (in that case, the gift ended at puberty, though). And Aria's grandfather is still hopeful that this newest truth-speaker in the family will find a way to persuade the unruly prophetic streak to come up with something to help the household finances ... say, the winning animal at the races.

But prophecy, for this line of "Sibyls," isn't one of those things you get to just push the button on. And in Aria's case, things are dire. Because any time someone asks a question, no matter what, she has to answer it. So she's learned to wear headphones and listen to music to keep from hearing others, and when she does hear their questions -- and people ask a stunning amount of questions every day -- she tries to mumble the answers. Being compelled to reveal truthful answers has already brought her way too much trouble (like, answering where a straying husband is, or what a boy sees in another girl, ouch!) As Aria comments about her lack of friends at school, "Who wants a friend who only speaks the truth?"

So it's a complete and surprising accident when one of the most popular girls in school asks a question that Aria can't help answering, a reply to Jade's despair: "Some things can only be confided to the earth." Not that Aria knows what that's supposed to mean (prophecies are often metaphorical or weird). But Jade seems to get it, and for a moment, school isn't such a desperate place.

Until Jade is found missing, then dead, and Aria -- of course -- can't help replying if people ask her about the death. Soon the police and then Jade's two boyfriends are after Aria, and at least one of them may have a dangerous motive for calling her and inviting her into something she barely grasps.

Go ahead, buy a copy for the "young adult" in your life. (It's from Soho Teen, sibling to Soho Crime.) Just make sure you have enough time to read it yourself, before you give it away.