Me, the Missing, and the Dead

Me: Lucas Swain I'm nearly sixteen years old and live in London. I was fairly normal until the night I found Violet. Then everything changed.

The Missing: Dad. He disappeared five years ago. Nobody knows what happened to him, and nobody cares except me. It's enough to drive you crazy.

The Dead: That's Violet . . . in the urn. Speaking of crazy I know she's trying to tell me something, and I think it's about my father. . . .

A dead lady may not be much to go on, but my dad's out there somewhere, and it's up to me to find out where.

Publishers Weekly

It's difficult to pinpoint just what makes this British debut so quietly disturbing yet so compulsively readable. Valentine simultaneously attempts a detective caper, a commentary on euthanasia and a youth's pithy send up of an unfair world—and succeeds. Despite its oddball plot, in which 15-year-old Lucas inadvertently stumbles upon an abandoned urn of ashes in a cab depot and, in an uncanny twist of fate, unearths the truth about his father, who disappeared five years earlier, the novel raises serious questions about death even as it exposes the entrails of a broken family. Even with the heavy subject matter, Valentine gives humor free reign, as Lucas mouths off in cheeky British twang about his annoying sister, his lack of friends and his sense that he is the only one still holding a torch for his father. Ages 14-up. A memorable new voice. (Apr.)

Jenny Valentine worked in a food shop for fifteen years, where she met many extraordinary people and sold more organic bread than there are words in her first book. She studied English literature at Goldsmith's College, which almost made her stop reading but not quite. Her debut novel, Me, the Missing, and the Dead, won the prestigious Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in the UK under the title Finding Violet Park. Jenny is married to a singer/songwriter and has two children. She lives in Hay on Wye, England.