Two little girls, one dangerous summer, and a 10-year-old with questionable investigative skills
It's the summer of 1959, and ten-year-old Sally O'Malley has a lot on her plate. Her mother has gone into the hospital for gallbladder surgery, and complications have kept her there longer than expected. Sally's older sister, Nell, has been instructed to look after Sally and her younger sister, Troo. Unfortunately, Nell has a boyfriend, and apparently boyfriends take precedence over little sisters. Their alcoholic stepfather isn't much help either, preferring the company of his booze to that of his stepdaughters.
So Sally finds herself responsible for Troo. She's ten. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, for starters, there's a murderer and child molester loose in the neighborhood, preying on young girls. Sally, blessed with an overactive imagination and a questionable understanding of criminal investigation, sets about figuring out who the bad guy is. Her list of suspects includes the neighborhood beat cop, and her evidence involves, among other things, the color of people's socks. Because apparently, footwear is an important investigative tool when you're ten.
Sally made me roll my eyes more than a few times, but she's ten. Ten-year-olds are supposed to make you roll your eyes. It's in the job description.
And that's one of the things Lesley Kagen did particularly well. Sally is authentically ten years old. She doesn't think or speak like a miniature adult. Her imagination runs wild, her reasoning is sometimes spectacularly flawed, and her decisions aren't always the wisest. But underneath all that, she's a little girl trying to make sense of a world that has suddenly become frightening and unpredictable.
There were times I wanted to reach right into the book, wrap Sally and Troo in bubble wrap, and keep them safe until their mother came home. These two little girls were dealing with far more than they should have had to, and the adults who were supposed to protect them were doing a lousy job of it.
Although there's a murder mystery running through the story, I found that Whistling in the Dark was really more about Sally and Troo navigating that summer than about catching a killer. The mystery provided an undercurrent of danger, but the girls and their experiences were the heart of the book.
I didn't know who the villain was, although I was fairly certain Sally's suspicions about the neighborhood cop were misplaced. When the truth finally came out, I wasn't particularly surprised. The revelation made sense, but it wasn't one of those endings that left me sitting there with my mouth hanging open.
This isn't necessarily my usual type of book. I generally prefer my thrillers with a little more suspense and a few more surprises. But Kagen's writing was excellent, Sally's voice was wonderfully authentic, and the story kept me interested from beginning to end.
Four stars. A well-written, engaging coming-of-age story wrapped around a dark mystery. It didn't keep me up all night, but it certainly kept my attention.
