scknitter 's review for:

Odd Child Out by Gilly Macmillan

5.0

---

Media exploitation of events to gain an audience and the bias and prejudice against immigrants trying hard for a new life are front and center as Detective Jim Clemo tries to find out what happened the night that young Noah Sadler either fell or was pushed into a canal. His young Somali friend Abdi was with him but he refused to say a word suffering from what everyone thought was shock, and before the police could pressure him to talk he ran away. It is up to Jim to discover if, as he suspects, the only witness is lying and if Abdi ran because of what happened to Noah or because of something even darker and more dangerous. A heartrending, but explosive novel, apropos of the times; it tells the story of family love and family lies, and the friendship between two teen boys as each family tries to save their sons. Odd Child Out is richly written with wonderful characters, and Macmillan’s flair for fiction hits quite close to truth and reality.