Body in the Woods (Review)

4/5 stars

The Body in the Woods (Goodreads  | Amazon) is a nice little suspenseful mystery for the young adult crowd.  For me, this was a quick read.  There's nothing brilliant or mind-blowing, just an interesting story about three teens who find a strangled girl while volunteering with Portland Search and Rescue.  When one of the teens, Ruby, starts doing research she begins to suspect it might not be the isolated incident that the police think it is but might be the work of a serial killer.

The mystery is believably constructed with a valid reason the police don't believe it's a serial killer, which gives the teenagers a good reason to investigate the crime on their own.  What they do isn't unbelievable or unrealistically dangerous but small things that curious teens would likely do.  I think it's important for any YA mystery to use restraint on how much teens put themselves into danger for investigating crimes.  I need to believe it, which is a combination of creating characters that would try to solve a crime and giving them a reason to investigate it themselves.

Speaking of the characters, I can't say that I connected with them on a particularly deep level.  They each had their own backstories and problems which contributed to the book (and the investigation) but they didn't really jump off the page.  I was glad that the book gave the characters backgrounds made them want to investigate the crime and gave clues to the investigation.  At times, there may have been a little bit of melodrama but the book never lost the main plotline even with the switching point of views and teenagers who had a life outside of Portland SAR.

Overall a solid mystery if you're wanting something to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I received an advanced reading e-copy in exchange for an honest review.