No One Else Can Have You (YA fiction)

     The little Wisconsin town of Friendship, the setting of Kathleen Hale's No One Else Can Have You, prides itself on its civility. People walk around smiling, greeting each other, acting like everything is wonderful, even if when it isn't. No one brings up topics that would make others uncomfortable. 

     But nasty currents run under all this superficial veneer of niceness. Sometimes they come to the surface.

     A police officer answers a call from the owners of a corn field, sure that it's just another case of vandalism like the ones he's dealt with in the past. The wife is in hysterics She leads him to a tree from which swings the grotesquely mutilated body of Ruth, a teenage girl. 

     Sheriff Staake is sure it's an open and shut case. The culprit is obviously Ruth's boyfriend, Colt. He has a long history of vandalism and worse. Because he was a football star the police had to clean up after him each time rather than prosecuting him.

     Kippy, Hale's narrator, was Ruth's best friend. In fact when Ruth was abducted she was on her way to Kippy's house for a birthday sleepover. Kippy considers Colt to be BAD NEWS. She knows that he beat Ruth and probably cheated on her. But she knows that her hometown's cops are much better at finding lost pets than dealing with homicide. She thinks that they're closing the case much too soon.

     "But what do I do? Because honestly I don't even know what I'm after or up against here. I mean, the cops won't listen and everyone else has their heads inside their butts trying to be polite. Not to mention, Friendship is actually way less boring but maybe also much more weird and creepy than I thought it was, and nobody really prepared me for that."

     Prepared or not, Kippy is determined to solve the mystery...

     ...if it doesn't prove to be the death of her.

On a purrrsonal note, Eugene and I spent our 3 day weekend at camp, mostly indoors with the wood stove going. It was cold and rainy 🌧 until the 🌞 came out just when it was time to go home. But we did have fun. We watched 2 funny movies. And I read 3 books. 

A great big shout goes out to Eugene. 

Jules Hathaway 

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