Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Buzz Kill

Fantaskey, Beth. Buzz Kill. 2014. 362p. ISBN 9780547393100. Available as an ebook from Overdrive.


Millie Ostermeyer, a senior in high school, is a budding journalist who works on the Gazette, her school newspaper. She has a hate relationship with Vivienne, the editor, who happens to be pretty, perky, and the head cheerleader. Millie is very tom-boyish, is flat-chested, has unruly red hair, wears mismatched clothes, has only two friends, and would rather read philosophers than attend school, particularly her French class.

At Honeywell High School, football is king, and Coach Killdare is as famous for his victories on the field as he is for his unabashed outbursts of anger. Her junior year, mysterious Chase joined the school and promptly took over quarterback duties from Mike, Vivienne's flunky. No one knows anything about Chase, except that he is very good looking, drives a nice car, and does not socialize with anyone at school. Oh, and unlike Millie, Chase is able to speak French in their French class. There are rumors that he has a girlfriend, and a small picture on his locker seems to prove that.

In September of their senior year, just as football season heats up, Coach Killdare goes missing, and for a few weeks no one seems to worry too much about it. Millie's father, who happens to be the town mayor, moves from the assistant coach to the head coach position. Told by Vivienne to do an expose on the structural flaws of the stadium that was approved by her own father, Millie is not happy that she may be undermining her own father. That is until she stumbles upon the body of Coach Killdare in a storage room underneath the seating area.

Now the hunt is on. With her father as a suspect, Millie decides to investigate the crime for the school paper, and the list of suspects who might want to kill Coach Killdare she compiled back in her junior year will prove handy. If only she wasn't developing feelings for Chase and his mysterious past!

A riot of a mystery novel peppered with teen angst and enough bad decisions to be delicious, Buzz Kill will satisfy those who enjoy a whodunit read, and will keep the readers guessing all the way to the end as to the killer's identity!

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