On October 28, 1973, 11-year-old Jonathan Kushner hopped on his bike and took off for the 7-Eleven. Jon's four-year-old brother, David, stood on the sidewalk and watched him peddle away. It's a small detail that might have been lost in years of subsequent day, except that this was the last time that David saw Jon alive. Over the years, the questions that haunt him stem from this moment: Could David have changed Jon's mind? If David hadn't begged his brother to buy him a toy, would Jon have gone? Readers experience the sequence of events through the perspective of David as a child: Jon's bike found off the path, Jon's body in the trunk of a car, Jon's funeral. Kids at school said that the killers had pickled Jon's body and put it in a jar. David's father said that David was inside when Jon left and could not have been the last one to see him. What really happened? At 13, David started furtively hunting through the library's microfilmed newspaper articles, searching for information about Jon's death. Teens will relate both to David's need to uncover the truth and his desire to protect his parents from what he discovers. The crime is always presented from David's intensely personal perspective, and his sense of horror is excruciatingly amplified as he realizes that his parents have known the disturbing details all along. More than 40 years later, Kushner, now an acclaimed author and journalist, is ready to tell the story.
VERDICT Teens looking for graphic details would do better with titles such as Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter. But those seeking to understand how life continues after a grave loss will love Kushner's eloquent words and personal viewpoint.
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