And I Heard a Bird Sing (Plus). This item is unavailable.And I Heard a Bird Sing (Plus)

Eighteen-year-old Imamu's newly-found contentment, with his job and the apartment he shares with his frail mother, is shattered when he is inadvertently drawn into the sinister events taking place in a wealthy household where he has been delivering groceries.

Grade 7-10 Neither the tight construction of The Disappearance (1979) nor the complex characterizations of New Guys on the Block (1983, both Delacorte) can be found in Guy's latest Imamu Jones mystery, which pales in comparison to the earlier novels. Jones is now living with his recovered alcoholic mother in a Brooklyn apartment near his foster family, the Aimsleys. He is suspected of murder at an estate to which he makes deliveries, but with the support of Detective Brown, who appeared in the previous books, Imamu is able to find and confront the actual murderer. The plot is too grounded in coincidence to work as a mystery, and the beauty of language that is usually Guy's strength is lacking here (``Mrs. Jones's manchild had taken a giant damn step''; ``Imamu took the toothpick from his mouth, to see the man better''). Guy spends a lot of time telling about the action of the previous books, which slows down this narrative considerably. At several points, Jones likens Detective Brown to ``a detective out of a movie mystery,'' and that is too true of much of this book. With this novel, a good mystery series dissolves into melodrama. David Gale, ``School Library Journal''
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.