None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney

Abstract

Reviewed by: None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney Kiri Palm Marney, Ellie None Shall Sleep. Little, 2020 [400p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780316497831 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780316497800 $9.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 9-12 Two years after escaping the den of a serial killer, eighteen-year-old Emma Lewis is approached by the FBI for a special mission: helping the newly formed Behavioral Science Unit interview adolescent psychopaths. Upon arriving at Quantico, she meets her new partner (and almost love interest) Travis Bell, a U.S. Marshalin-Training who hopes to follow in his murdered father's professional footsteps. Before they can settle into their new project, the teens are thrust into an active case when Simon Gutmunsson, one of their interviewees and the boy who murdered Travis' father, reveals insight into one of the FBI's most wanted: an exsanguinating child murderer dubbed the Berryville Butcher. Rife with dark pasts, gothic mental institutions, and grisly crime scenes, this is pure pulp for the true-crime obsessed. Taking plenty of inspiration from Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter series, Emma is a Clarice Starling for a younger crowd, with past trauma and current frustrations likely to resonate with teens accustomed to school shootings and the 24-hour news cycle. A 1980s setting warrants forgiveness for plot devices such as communication glitches and delays in receiving information (and some slack on melodramatic mental illness tropes). This may be more cinematic than realistic on its crime adventure, but thrillseekers will find it a suspenseful page turner with a gaspworthy final twist. Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois