Dooley Takes The Fall (Ryan Dooley Mysteries) [Paperback]

Norah McClintock (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ryan Dooley Mysteries | Publication Date: March 15, 2008

White Pine nominee, 2009

Spinetingler Magazine Award Nominee, 2009

Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice, 2009

A boy maybe twelve years old, on a bike, stopped next to Dooley, looked at the kid sprawled on the pavement and said, "Is he dead?"


"Yeah, I think so," Dooley said. In fact, he was sure of it because there was no air going into or coming out of the lungs of the kid on the pavement. Also, the kid's open eyes were staring at nothing, and his head was twisted, as if he had turned to look at something just before he made contact with the hard surface of the path.

Right away, Dooley knows he's in trouble. For one thing he's got a record. For another, the dead kid isn't exactly a stranger - and he's no friend.

So slowly the net begins to close around 17-year-old Dooley, a troubled lone wolf who has a couple of strikes against him already. Not many are on Dooley's side; in fact at times he even wonders whether his uncle - a retired cop - thinks he's guilty again. There's a big question of trust in their uneasy relationship, and his uncle is the only one standing between Dooley and big time disaster.

The dead kid's sister Beth is someone Dooley would like to have think better of him as well - but she also suspects he's involved in the crime. And all around him are other teenagers at school and in the world he's drawn into who would like to pin him with responsibility for a growing number of murders that swirl through the city.

Norah McClintock, five-time winner of the Arthur Ellis juvenile crime award, has now moved into a different realm with a richly detailed novel aimed at older teens. Gritty, hard-edged, Dooley Takes the Fall is the first in a trilogy of mysteries about a troubled teenager struggling to free himself from the tentacles of his past and the implications of the present conspiracies that surround him.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Ryan Dooley, 17, has been trying to stay out of trouble. He is three months out of juvenile detention and living with his strict but fair uncle. All he has to do is keep clean and go to work and school and his relative will provide for him. Then a dead body falls in front of him from a bridge while he is walking through a ravine at night. He is the only witness to the apparent suicide. The dead guy's sister comes to him looking for help, wanting him to undergo hypnosis to be sure everything he remembers comes to light. She does not believe that her brother committed suicide and is looking for answers. Dooley begins to do some investigating on his own after he is framed for a robbery. The first 100 pages drag a bit as the author lays down the plot but then the story picks up speed. Dooley is a likable, if somewhat flawed, character, and he becomes increasingly more endearing as his true nature is revealed. An excellently written murder mystery.—Julianna M. Helt, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
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Review

"She (Norah McClintock) is among the authors for young adults who simply write realistic, entertaining, tempting books. . . The book clips along speedily in a plot that's far more interesting than any video game, but its best appeals lie in its recognizable depictions of a high school life that's mainly invisible to adults, and in Dooley himself. . . Young readers - young non-readers - will recognize his voice, and they'll like it."
-- The London Free Press

"McClintock, in her usual competent style, adeptly scatters clues throughout the novel to foreshadow the final unveiling. . . With well-paced action, graphic dialogue, intelligent prose, an engaging protagonist, a nice variety of secondary characters, and a compelling story, this page-turner should appeal strongly to fans of the mystery genre.
Highly Recommended"
-- CM Magazine

"...the author does a good job of characterization especially with Dooley and his stiffnecked uncle, a former cop, who turns out to be more sympathetic than readers might have expected."
-- Booklist

"Dooley Takes the Fall is a superbly written, entertaining drama. The plot is well executed, and the characters and their relationships are interesting."
-- VOYA

"This is a powerful, often harrowing novel that will appeal to those who appreciate books about people surviving in spite of grave injustices."
-- School Library Journal

"McClintock walks the delicate line of making the suspicions reasonable while keeping Dooley's risky actions understandable as well. . . Mystery fans who appreciate a personal touch as much as a plot will enjoy championing this underdog detective."
-- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Dooley Takes the Fall is a Canadian YA novel but as with the best that YA fiction has to offer don't let those two letters fool or scare you. This is as tough a crime novel and as good a mystery as you're likely to find anywhere anchored by one of the best characters to come along in years. . . Dooley is a great character that invokes a wide array of feeling from the reader but becomes one that you ultimately root for. . . If John Hughes wrote a crime novel it might look something like this."
-- Spinetingler Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Red Deer Press; 1 edition (March 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0889954038
• ISBN-13: 978-0889954038
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,442,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: DOOLEY TAKES THE FALL, June 3, 2008

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dooley Takes The Fall (Ryan Dooley Mysteries) (Paperback)

"Nobody told me there'd be days like these." -- John Lennon

"Dooley was looking down at the kid sprawled on the asphalt path in the ravine when two things happened. First, Dooley's pager vibrated. Dooley knew without checking that it was his uncle trying to reach him. Second, a boy maybe twelve years old, on a bike, stopped next to Dooley, looked at the kid lying on the pavement and said, 'Is he dead?'"

Teenager Mark Everley is, in fact, dead, having gone off a bridge (Fell? Pushed?) under the evening's full moon. Seventeen-year-old Ryan Dooley was out walking, after leaving work at the video store, when he looked up and saw Everley, in the distance, taking a header toward that asphalt path.

"'Mark Everley,' his uncle said at last. 'The kid who went off the bridge.' He shoved the newspaper across the table to Dooley. 'You didn't tell me he went to your school.'
"'I thought I recognized him,' Dooley said, which was true. 'But his head was kind of smashed up, so I wasn't sure' which wasn't true, but it sounded a lot nicer than saying what he was actually thinking (It couldn't have happened to a more deserving person), which would have only annoyed his uncle. 'Anyway, I didn't know that was his name and the cops didn't tell me,' which was also true."

Dooley has come to live with his uncle after spending significant time in confinement for an incident involving a baseball bat. He has only been attending this school for a few weeks.

Dooley's uncle is a retired cop who now owns a couple of dry cleaning stores. Dooley's father has never been in the young man's life. Prior to confinement, and his current residency in his uncle's house, Dooley had grown up bouncing around with his substance-prone mother from place to place and school to school.

Inch by inch, we come to know that Dooley has a significant measure of goodness and compassion in him, and that Dooley's past behavior has sometimes been unforgivable. But the questions to be puzzled out in this great YA crime mystery include: How does Dooley fit into the death of Mark Everley? What will come to pass between Dooley and Everley's beautiful sister? How does the young illegal alien Esperanza fit into the mystery?

And what can Dooley possibly do to alter what comes to seem like an inevitable path toward re-incarceration?

"The main reason was the feeling in his gut, the one that made everything churn, even milk and cereal, the feeling that in the old days he would have warded off with booze or pills or weed or whatever was handy. It was the same feeling that used to creep over him when he was a kid and all alone in a dark room, listening for noises out in the hall (doors opening, footsteps approaching, hammering on the door) or in his mother's room next to his. It was the feeling that came on him when he got called on in school and he didn't know the answer and kids would look at him like he was stupid. It was the feeling that however bad things were now, they were about to get worse."

Methodically offering readers vital little pieces of the puzzle, veteran Canadian author Norah McClintock has fashioned a tense, high interest young adult mystery around a vulnerable, complex teenager who has made some really bad choices in the past and is trying to get it right this time.

4.0 out of 5 stars Fist-pump Read!, November 30, 2010

By 

Meghan (United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dooley Takes The Fall (Ryan Dooley Mysteries) (Paperback)

This book isn't my usual style of what I like to read but I fell in the mood for a book that wasn't too well known but has a great message and tells of a troubled teen. This story was just what I was looking for.

Dooley, the hero of the book, is not as typical as one might think after reading the book description: Dooley actually feels real, a loner who doesn't come off as desperate but rather so intriguing that it makes the reader memorized by how he deals with his problems and life in general.

The story in general was a great read. Full of drama, suspense and a tinge of romance that was just above satisfaction.

This is the second book I've read by Norah McClintock and certainly not the last. So far her books have shown so much truthfulness in all it's characters and generation that would make any reader stop and think why there isn't enough praise coming through for these stories.

When I realized there were more books to this series I was ecstatic. There are three books in total: Dooley Takes the Fall, Homicide Related, Victim Rights.

5.0 out of 5 stars What you want and what you get are never the same thing, August 11, 2009

By 

upfront_reader (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dooley Takes The Fall (Ryan Dooley Mysteries) (Paperback)

One of the things that happens when you don't read back cover blurbs--which I don't, I hate how much they give away--is that occasionally you're surprised by what a book is really about. When I picked up //Dooley Takes the Fall// the one word that caught my eye was "trouble." So I thought it was going to be one of those issue books where the hero/heroine has terrible troubles that they have to try to work through. And it is. But it's much more than that. //Dooley// is also a suspenseful mystery with a touch of romance thrown in. And mostly, it's a very good read.

It's obvious from the very beginning of the story that Dooley is a kid who's seen trouble. Ms. McClintock laces the opening chapter with clues that Dooley not only has a troubled past, he has a complicated present. But rather than dump the truth on us, the author slowly doles it out, in dribs and drabs that hint at just how much trouble Dooley has caused for himself. And it's a measure of her abilities as a writer that when we do find out what Dooley did--and it truly is awful--we don't lose sympathy for him or judge him. Instead, we understand how his miserable home life, his fear, and his determination to not screw up again have combined to get him to this place.

I loved the depth of characterization in this novel--Dooley himself, his tough-but-fair uncle, and the distraught Beth--and how the author manages to delineate a character with just a few lines ("His uncle stared at him, still waiting. Dooley's uncle was good at waiting, good at making the other guy fill up the spaces and maybe even incriminate himself with the filler talk.") And because the author has given us so much insight into Dooley and the other characters, we care about and agonize along with Dooley throughout his story. And I love that the author doesn't give us any easy answers, doesn't try to sugar-coat the difficulties that Dooley must face as he tries to take control of his life again.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent story and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, //Homicide Related//.