Published January 2nd 2014 by David Fickling Books.
Goodreads Synopsis: Meet Garvie Smith. Highest IQ ever recorded at Marsh Academy. Lowest ever grades. What’s the point, anyway? Life sucks. Nothing ever happens.
Until Chloe Dow’s body is pulled from a pond.
DI Singh is already on the case. Ambitious, uptight, methodical – he’s determined to solve the mystery and get promoted. He doesn’t need any ‘assistance’ from notorious slacker, Smith.
Or does he?
My Review: Running Girl was a book I’d been really looking forward to- and luckily I did really enjoy it! Not entirely as much as I thought I would, but still, it was a really fun mystery to follow.
I started the book with a pretty clear idea of it, as I’d talked to the author at the RHCP crime event about it! I was really absorbed in the story for most of the time: I enjoyed the beginning, especially, which really hooks the reader in. I really did like the pot; it’s a classic crime fiction scenario, though it felt fresh and new, and completely original.
I enjoyed guessing throughout, though Running Girl is so misleading! It’s clever, really clever, though I found a lot of parts quite confusing. It’s a really great crime book in the way that it leads you to think the killer’s one person, when really it’s the person I least expected… though I think so much was going on, I lost track! I ended up re-reading a lot of passages and chapters, because I did get confused.
Garvie’s a really uncommon main character. A lot of books I read centered around mysteries have character that are the complete opposite. Instead, Garvie Smith is lazy, incredibly intelligent but unwilling to do anything, and prefers to hang out with crime-committing kids instead of going to school. Despite his personality, I loved him. He was very much like Sherlock Holmes, only willing to do something if it interests him hugely- and that, now, is working out the mystery behind Chloe Dow’s murder.
I admit it was hard to like him at first, but I did really grow to like him! He was brilliant, a really alternative protagonist, that I think a lot of teens and adults will become attached to. I don’t think he developed very much through the events, but I’m hoping to get to know him even better in book two.
Overall, Running Girl is a book that I’m really mixed on, though I’m mainly loving it. Despite the fact I struggled to follow at a few points, the murder plot was really clever. It’s unpredictable and unexpected, and Garvie’s journey is wild and takes him everywhere on a search, from a Casino to a school… I really enjoyed reading about Garvie’s search, because he’s not your average fictional character. Recommended to crime fiction fans. (:
My Rating:
I received a copy of Running Girl from the publisher, in exchange for a review. In no way at all did this affect my thoughts.
Goodreads Synopsis: Meg Bergman is fifteen and fed up. She lives in a tiny town in rural 1990s South Africa – a hot-bed of traditionalism, racial tension and (in Meg’s eyes) ordinariness. Meg has no friends either, due largely to what the community sees as her mother’s interfering attempts to educate farm workers about AIDS. But one day Xanthe arrives – cool, urban, feisty Xanthe, who for some unknown reason seems to want to hang out with Meg.
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