The Rag and Bone Shop-Robert Cormier

	Title: The Rag and Bone Shop Author: Robert Cormier Genre: Young Adult Pages: 154 Publication: Dell Laurel-Leaf, 2001 Source: Own Rating:

“Whoever killed her had apparently laid her down with tenderness, folded her arms across her chest, pulled her dress down primly to her knees and carefully arranged her long black hair to frame her face. But the killer could not erase the expression frozen in her eyes-horror and surprise-and had not bothered to close those stricken eyes.”

The Rag and bone Shop is a fast-paced, young adult read about a boy named Jason who is interrogated in connection with the murder of Alicia Bartlett. The local police station calls in an expert interrogator, Trent, in order to get a confession quickly. The story centers on the little office where Jason is interrogated and the dialogue between the two.

I found this story very intriguing in the fact that it focuses on the leg work after a murder and not the murder itself. With this, we get more of what goes on inside an interrogator’s mind as he questions a suspect. The clues, body language, and wording of the sentences was all captivating and kept me reading in order to figure out if Jason had really committed the murder or not. It was also scary to read how Trent twisted Jason’s words in order to make him look bad. That is the truly horrible part of the whole read. Though there is a really surprising ending that took me completely by shock, which was great.

I found this to be a nice read to just relax with. It only took me a few hours to read the whole book and it was nice to quickly get away for a little but not worry about having to invest a large amount of time into it.