Hit and Run

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Hit and Run demonstrates many of the fine qualities of plotting that
have earned McClintock four Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Juvenile
Mystery from the Crime Writers of Canada. This young-adult novel
features Toronto’s Mike McGill, 15, whose single-parent mother, Nancy,
was killed in an unsolved hit-and-run accident four years previously.
Since then, Mike has been under the guardianship of his sole surviving
relative, his 25-year-old maternal uncle, Billy, a garage mechanic,
party guy, and hands-off surrogate parent.

By chance, Mike’s new history teacher is John Riel, an ex-detective.
Riel had led the investigation surrounding Mike’s mother’s death.
When Mike is charged in a petty theft, Riel takes a personal interest in
the troubled teen. Naturally, Mike questions Riel about his knowledge
concerning his mother’s fatal accident, and from what Riel tells him,
Mike becomes convinced that his mother was actually murdered. Riel
concurs, but says that the essential missing element is motive.

Readers familiar with the “rules” of this genre will recognize that
Billy and his long-time buddies, Dan and Lew, must be connected in some
fashion to Nancy’s death, but, like Mike, readers will need to
discover the “how and why” of their involvement. Throughout the
story, McClintock inserts the needed clues for solving the crime while
appropriately complicating the plot by having a potential witness die of
a stroke and a “guilty” Billy seemingly committing suicide.
Recommended.