Synopsis
Denmark, Tennessee, stinks. The smell hits Horatio Wilkes the moment he pulls into town to visit his best friend, Hamilton Prince. And it’s not just the paper plant and the polluted river that’s stinking up Denmark: Hamilton’s father has been poisoned and the killer is still at large. Why? Because nobody believes that Rex Prince was murdered. Nobody except Horatio and Hamilton. Now they need to find the killer, but it won’t be easy. It seems like everyone in Denmark is a suspect. Motive, means, opportunity— they all have them. But who among them has committed murder most foul?
John LeightonCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal
Gr 10 Up
This contemporary reworking of Hamlet is told through the voice of quick-witted Horatio Wilkes, who is visiting his boarding-school friend Hamilton Prince. Hamilton's father has been knocked off, and Horatio resolves to solve the crime. Denmark, TN, serves as the mill-town backdrop to the story, and the winking nods to Shakespeare's characters-including Olivia, Roscoe, and Gilbert-are mildly fun to observe. The author tries to remake the protagonist as a sexy Everyman who passes easily through town and into the good graces of its inhabitants, but it feels forced and unrealistic. Women can't resist the teen, apparently, and they all exist merely as a foil for his cadlike ways. When he tires of leering at Olivia and moves on, she has nothing else to do but wait until the end of the novel to kiss him. The fun quotient quickly dissolves for a conceit that had potential.