Area 10

Gr 9 Up—New York Detective Adam Kamen is having a rough time. After his wife unexpectedly loses their baby, she divorces him. His new case, following the decapitating serial killer nicknamed "Henry the Eighth," isn't helping his stress level. When he leaps into action one fateful afternoon to stop an apparently insane man from sticking a screwdriver into a baby's skull, it's Kamen who ends up with the hole in his head. He survives, but starts seeing some really weird things. Sometimes people look older, sometimes younger. Sometimes he sees things happen before they actually do. He confides in Dr. Avery, the beautiful woman responsible for his initial recovery. As Kamen draws closer and closer to the killer, everyone around him begins to suspect that he might not be as fully recovered as they first thought. Set in a noir-inspired art style, the black-and-white illustrations first highlight the characters on the page with deceptively detailed backgrounds. Each panel will draw teens into the action while the mysterious story unfolds. It's almost as if each panel is slightly out of focus, mirroring the idea that Kamen cannot rely on what his eyes are really telling him.—Ryan Donovan, New York Public Library