Burning Blue (review)

Recovering from a recent acid attack that left much of her face burned and scarred, former teen beauty queen Nicole Castro is barely holding back her tears as she waits in the school shrink's office, while sixteen-year-old Jay Nazarroo, awkward loner extraordinaire, is thinking of something to say. He somehow manages the right words and the two strike up a friendship, bonding over their now shared status as freaks. As his affection for Nicole grows, Jay becomes intent on finding out who exactly attacked Nicole and why, but his hacking skills and investigative queries are turning up answers he's not quite ready to deal with, especially when they point in the direction of Nicole. Having done gritty realism in Ten Mile River (BCCB 9/08) and doomed romance in Stay With Me (BCCB 11/11), Paul Griffin here takes on another genre, giving readers a taut, disturbing thriller anchored with moments of incredible poignancy and emotional resonance. All the elements are there—a beautiful girl looking for a hero, a damaged kid with savant-like investigative skills and considerable curiosity, a list of suspects a mile long, and a tankful of red herrings. Jay's narration is all teenage boy, but his desire to help Nicole is more than just hormones or even the need to feel needed: he can't figure out how to exist in a world where an act this horrendous could possibly be random. It turns out to be very deliberate indeed, and the eventual revelation of the mastermind of the acid plot is quite the twist. While the mostly mild moments between Jay and Nicole don't provide the swoony romance of Stay with Me, readers will nonetheless be swept up in this thoughtful, well-paced mystery that will have hearts racing.