Blackbird by N. D. Gomes

The Blurb On The Back:

My name is Alex.
I am fifteen years old, and I don't know where my sister is.
Or if she will ever come back.

It was New Year's Eve the night that, the dead blackbirds descended, hours before Alex McCarthy's sister Olivia went missing from a party.

Committed to finding out what happened to her sister within the previously safe walls of their subarctic Orkney village, Alex knows that dishevelled, sometimes intoxicated, Detective Inspector Birkins is her best shot.

Yet as they uncover the secrets behind Olivia's last night, Alex starts to find out things she may be better off never knowing …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

N D Gomes's contemporary crime fiction YA has some interesting ideas and I believed in Alex's grief but it also veered a little too close to melodrama and cliché for my tastes (notably in the dancing metaphors for Olivia, which I thought were overdone) while I never really believed in the relationship between Alex and Birkins and the mystery element lacked tension such that I didn't really feel invested in the final reveal.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.