Blood Trail [Paperback]

Nancy Springer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2007

Jeremy and Aaron, 17, have been inseparable since second grade. Now Aaron has been brutally murdered, his body mutilated with 73 knife wounds. In small-town Pinto River, rumors abound and spread like wildfire. First there is total disbelief that this could happen. Then the community is sure that a psychotic serial killer is on the loose. But Jeremy has kept one small fact from the police: Aaron told him that he was afraid of his twin brother, Nathan. Springer captures feelings of fear, grief, anger, and revenge. Her direct, simple vocabulary and sentence constructions contribute to an accessible book for less capable and reluctant readers. The dynamics of two families, the community, and the police investigation keep readers guessing, even though the ending is predictable. A quick and easy read.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7-10-Jeremy and Aaron, 17, have been inseparable since second grade. Now Aaron has been brutally murdered, his body mutilated with 73 knife wounds. In small-town Pinto River, rumors abound and spread like wildfire. First there is total disbelief that this could happen. Then the community is sure that a psychotic serial killer is on the loose. But Jeremy has kept one small fact from the police: Aaron told him that he was afraid of his twin brother, Nathan. Springer captures feelings of fear, grief, anger, and revenge. Her direct, simple vocabulary and sentence constructions contribute to an accessible book for less capable and reluctant readers. The dynamics of two families, the community, and the police investigation keep readers guessing, even though the ending is predictable. A quick and easy read.
Gail Richmond, San Diego Unified Schools, CA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gr. 6-8. Aaron and Jeremy are neighbors and best friends. After spending the afternoon together, Aaron is murdered, brutally stabbed over and over. Earlier, Aaron confessed to Jeremy that he wasn't getting along with his brother, Nathan. Later, Nathan becomes the prime suspect, is convicted of murdering Aaron, and is sent to jail. As time passes and things quiet down, however, Jeremy becomes convinced that Nathan isn't guilty. He thinks that his own bad-tempered sister, Jamy, is responsible, but he can't bring himself to tell anyone about his suspicions. Springer leaves the ending open, a decision that can pave the way for discussion about morality and family loyalty. More character development would have made the story richer, but the fast pace and suspense are enough to keep most readers, especially reluctant ones, engaged. Ed Sullivan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 105 pages
• Publisher: Holiday House (April 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823420639
• ISBN-13: 978-0823420636
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,492,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Conform, go crazy, or become an artist." I have a rubber stamp declaring those words, and they pretty much delineate my life. Conforming was the thing to do when I was raised, in the fifties. Even my mother, who spent her days painting animal portraits at an easel in the corner of the kitchen, tried to conform via housecleaning, bridge parties, and a new outfit every spring. My father, who was born into a British-mannered Protestant family in southern Ireland, emigrated to America as a young man and idolized the "melting pot" because at last he fit in. Once in a rare while he recited "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" or told a tale of a leprechaun, but most of the time he was an earnest naturalized American who expected exemplary behavior of his children. My mother was a charming Pollyanna who would not entertain negative sentiments in herself or anyone around her. As their only girl and the baby of the family, I was coddled, yet hardly ever got a chance to be other than excruciatingly good.

My "conform" phase lasted right into adulthood. When I was thirteen, my parents bought a small motel near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and I spent most of my teen years helping them make beds and clean rooms. I did not date until I went to college -- Gettysburg College, all of seven miles from home. it was the height of the sixties, and I grew my hair long, but eschewed pot, protests, and "happenings." Instead, I married a preacher's son who was himself conforming by studying for the ministry. Within a few years I was Rev. Springer's wife, complete with offspringers, living in a country parsonage in southern York County, PA.

Here beginneth the "go crazy" phase.

Because I had never been allowed any negative emotions, I began to hear "voices" in my head. First they whispered "divorce" (not permissible), and later they hissed "suicide". They scared me silly. I couldn't sleep; images of knives and torture floated in front of my eyes even during the daytime; something roared like an animal inside my ears; my wrists hurt; I saw blood seeping out of the walls; panic jolted me like a cattle goad out of nowhere. Is it necessary to add that I was clinically depressed? The doctor gave me Valium and sent me to a shrink. The shrink took me off the Valium and told me I had a problem with anger. (No duh.) The next doctor zombied me on the numbing antidepressants which were available at that time. The next shrink said I had an adjustment problem. And so on, for several years, during which I somehow managed to stay alive, take care of my kids, handle the vagaries of my husband, sew clothing and grow vegetables to get by financially, cook, can preserves, show up at church, do mounds of laundry and publish "The White Hart" and "The Silver Sun"--yet not one of the doctors of shrinks ever suggested that I might be a strong person, let alone a writer. All of them were intent on "helping" poor little me "adjust" to being a housewife, mother, and pastor's wife.

Eventually I became resigned to the fact (as I perceived it) that I was an evil, sinful person with horrible things going on inside my head, and I stopped trying to fix me. I stopped going to doctors or therapists. Somehow I found courage--or desperation--to stop trying to conform or adjust or live a role.

"I am going to start taking an hour or two first thing in the morning to do my writing," I said to my husband.

"Fine," he said. He had reached the point where he would agree with whatever to humor the neurotic wife; to him it was just another of my brain farts. But to me it was the most important sentence I ever spoke. With that statement I stopped being a housewife who sometimes stole time to write, and I started being a writer.

Conform, go crazy--or become an artist.

By becoming a writer--by becoming who I truly was--I became well.

It was so simple. Although it did take years, of course; it takes a long time for good things to grow. Trees. Books. Me. Odd thing about books; they not only nourish growth but show it happening. In "The Black Beast, The Golden Swan" and many other of my early novels, you can see me dealing with the yang/yin nature of good and evil, struggling to accept my own shadow. In "Chains of Gold" and "The Hex Witch of Seldom" I start writing as a woman, no longer identifying only with male main characters. In a number of children's books I come to terms with my own childhood. And in "Apocalypse"--whoa, what a fierce, dark fantasy novel, the first thing I wrote after my income from writing enabled my husband to leave the ministry. I hadn't thought of myself as repressed when I was a pastor's wife, but obviously something broke loose when I shed that role. "Larque on the Wing"--whoa again, another breakthrough book that spiraled straight out of my muddled middle-aged psyche and took me places I'd never dreamed were in me.

It's been a long time since those days when I thought I was an evil person. I know better now, and I love and trust me even to the extent of writing "Fair Peril"--a more perilous novel than I knew at the time, interfacing all too closely with my life. Written two years before the fact, it foresees my husband's infidelity and my divorce. The most painful irony I've ever faced is that once I gained my selfhood, I lost my lifelong partner. He had supported me through episodes that would have sent most men screaming and running, but once I became well and strong, he transferred his loyalty to a skinny, neurotic waif all to similar to the young woman I once was. After supporting him through twenty-seven years of stinky socks, automotive yearnings, miscellaneous foibles, and the career change that put him where she could cry on his shoulder, I found this a bit hard to take. But I wouldn't go back to being Ms. Pitiful. Not for anything.

Now married to a rather remarkable second husband, after living 46 years in Pennsylvania I moved in 2007 to the Florida panhandle, where I spent a year living in a small apartment above the aforementioned husband's hangar in an exceedingly rural (swamps, egrets, snakes and alligators) airport. Now we have a real house about a mile from the airport on higher ground featuring tremendously tall longleaf pine trees with rattlesnakes and scorpions underneath them. Life is an adventure and I mean that sincerely.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too many questions left me hanging, March 29, 2003

By 

Jessica Mize (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Trail (Hardcover)

The intensity of this novel is good, but the plot left me with too many questions left unanswered. I'm not sure what motived the character who turns out to be the murderer. I think a bit more content and development would have made this one a true page turner.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This is considered a mystery?, June 23, 2005

By 

Lexy with a Y (Wherever the heck I feel like) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Trail (Hardcover)

I was immediately intrigued by the cover and title of this book, Blood Trail. Even though it was short, and I don't usually read short books, it still looked pretty interesting.

Now, I had read that this book was a mystery. I love mysteries, you know, trying to see who dun it and why and all of that good stuff. So I was looking forward to a bit of a lower level mystery that wouldn't take as long to figure out as others. I thought I was in for a pretty good mystery. Boy was I wrong.

When I first started this book, the author almost immediately reavealed who the killer was. I thought that maybe it was a red herring, to throw me off of the real killer. Once again, I was wrong.

The ending was depressing and REALLY left me hanging, which is okay in a few situations but this book was already short. I figured the author could have made the book a little longer.

Also, even though it looks like it was written for young readers, there is a bad word on every page, and I thought that it was too old for me, and I'm a young teen. So I wouldn't suggest this book (though I wouldn't suggest it at all) to anyone who is not a teenager yet. You just won't like it.

I hardly ever rate books badly unless I really don't like them. And I really don't like this book. The only reason that I didn't rate it one star is because the main character's dealings with his grief are very realistic.

Read it if you like, but don't say I didn't warn you.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelent, December 11, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Blood Trail (Hardcover)

This was a very great book. It wasn't as scary as the cover made it look. But it still awas a good book. It left me in suspense throughout the whole book. I had no clue who commited the murder. But it started giving it away toward the end of the book. But other than that I had no clue. So if you are looking for a good suspenseful book than this one is a good choice for you.