Jack's Back

Dave Jenkinson is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba.

McClintock’s fourth young-adult novel, a mystery featuring a male
central character, is a sharp departure from her previous
titles—adolescent problem novels with female protagonists. After some
eight months of being in a coma ostensibly caused by an auto accident,
Jack Thorne, 17, awakens to discover that he has absolutely no memories
of his precoma life. Although as far as everyone around him is
concerned, “Jack’s back,” he goes home to a strange house occupied
by affluent parents he does not know, and then returns to an unfamiliar
school populated by strangers: teachers and fellow students who remember
and treat him as “the wild man of Kennedy High.” In recurring
nightmares, Jack visualizes a bloody face and sees himself holding a
gore-covered knife. When he encounters a picture of one of his best
friends, Ed Lyle, who has been missing since the time of the accident,
Jack recognizes Ed’s face as being the one in his nightmare and fears
that he might be a murderer. Jack also experiences the shock of learning
that his mother and stepfather, believing that he would never recover
from the coma, had gone to court to fight for his right to die. While
everyone who knew Jack thinks that the “old” Jack’s back, Cleo
Taradash, a school newcomer and nascent romantic interest, gives Jack a
fresh start while playing an instrumental role in helping him discover
what really happened the night of the car crash.

Unlike many mysteries for adolescents, Jack’s Back features strong
characterization and a meaty subplot involving Jack’s having to
respond to his parents’ guilt over their attempted euthanasia.

A most worthy addition to collections serving middle- and senior-school
readers.