Marvelous Middle Grade Monday...Cold Case by Julia Platt Leonard

From Good Reads:

When 13-year-old Oz Keillor finds a dead body in his family restaurant, he is soon caught up in a mystery where the stakes are high. His older brother is the prime suspect, and Oz quickly finds out that the murder may be tied to the death of their father years earlier, who was accused of selling nuclear secrets to rouge governments.

With the fate of his family in balance, it's up to Oz to try and crack the case, with the help of his best friend, Rusty. It's a quest that has more twists and turns than the dusty roads of New Mexico—with the answer being closer to home than Oz ever could have imagined.

In this fast paced murder mystery Oz’s day is off to a seriously bad start. Find a corpse, discover your dad is nothing you grew up believing, your brother and mom lied to you all your life, and your brother also happens to be the number one suspect. Things don’t get much better when his brother is arrested. What to do? Why, solve the mystery on your own with your best friend who is a CSI junky. Of course, he also breaks, in his best friends words, about a million laws along the way, hiding evidence being one of the big no-no’s. Attracting the attention of the real murderer also not such a good idea. Those kinds of things can get you killed.

This great read for the middle grade crowd who love mystery, murder, action. Think Alex Rider fans, Maximum Ride, 39 Clues. And would also be a possible for reluctant readers, just the right length so they won’t feel like you are handing them a giant book they’ll never get through (um, not that I would ever do that!), moves along well, very tight time frame, easy to read. I have a couple I am going to share this with, see what they think.

Other appeal, besides the fast moving plot is the mystery involving who the dad was (really a traitor to his country?) and Oz’ love hate with his brother and his sense of betrayal over being lied to all this time. Plus, as you read, you really do wonder just who should he be trusting. Not only that, the family’s only means of income, the place that all their money is sunk into is the scene of the crime, the family restaurant. As much a people love to go out to eat, choosing a restaurant where a murder has been committed is not exactly a top choice--no matter how good the head chef (Oz's brother) is. And if the head chef is the one accused of the murder? Not even a Top-Chef Master could cook up a storm to over come that one.

Details on things kids will want to know-The Cold War, WW ll Nuclear bomings, Los Alamos etc, do not bog the story down, the writer smooths the information into dialogue that flows naturally from the text. In other words no information dumps either. The author captured the middle grade feel and voice really well. Combine on all of the above with a kick butt side kick (Rusty) who really could be a CSI kid, you’ve got an all around hit.

Learn more about the author and her book here.

I read this compliments of Simon and Schuster's Galley Grab.

Looking for more Marvelous Middle Grade reads? Check these out:

First, our fearless leader--Shannon Whitney Messenger (and there's a GIVEAWAY...yay!)
Shannon O'Donnell of Book Dreaming
Joanne Fritz of My Brain on Books
Ben Langhinrchs of  My Comfy Chair
Sherrie Petersen of Write About Now  
Brooke Favero of Somewhere in the Middle
Myrna Foster of Night Writer   
Ally Beecher of Kid Lit Frenzy
Barbara Watson of Novel and Nouveau
Anita Laydon Miller of Anita Laydon Miller's Middle Grade Blog
Natalie Aguirre of Literary Rambles



Happy Reading!