SAMMY KEYES AND THE PSYCHO KITTY QUEEN
by Wendelin Van Draanen
Knopf
ISBN: 0375823492
Ages 10-up
304 pages

On the eve of her 14th birthday Sammy Keyes is visiting her friend, Hudson Graham, when his neighbor shows up and accuses Hudson's elderly dog of killing her missing cat, Snowball. The neighbor, who calls herself "Miss Kitty," is some piece of work, all dolled up like a giant tiara-wearing Barbie. Almost immediately Sammy finds a dead cat answering Snowball's description ("black"!) in a garbage can. When Sammy takes the body to Miss Kitty, the woman goes berserk, drenching Sammy with a hose and earning her nickname "Psycho Kitty Queen."

At home Sammy's mom serves up a big piece of bad news: Sammy isn't 13, about to turn 14 --- she's actually 12, almost 13! Sammy's mind reels at repeating her 13th year, but that doesn't stop her from discovering more and more dead cats. Who is the neighborhood cat killer? Sammy is determined to find out. Meanwhile, she shows the guys at the pro wrestling school how to take a few falls.

The creepiest wrestler in the world --- a guy never out of his cat mask and cat-eye contact lenses --- is lurking about, hissing at Sammy to stay away. He must be involved in the cat murders. But how? And why? And who is he? (When you find out who "El Gato" really is, I can almost guarantee that you'll be as shocked as I was!)

Sammy is on the case, but she's also dealing with her pain of a mother, her archenemy, and her guy friend. She's grappling, too, with another mystery: is a rerun of being 13 the worst curse in the world --- or is it a second chance?

SAMMY KEYES AND THE PSYCHO KITTY QUEEN is a purrrr-fectly pleasurable read.

   --- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon (terryms2001@yahoo.com)

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