The Morgue and Me

by John C. Ford



Christopher Newell took a summer job doing a little janitorial work at the morgue. It wasn't really his first choice, but it sort of fit in with his life-long goal to become a spy; learning forensics and all that jazz, so it wasn't too bad of a gig. Little did Chris realize that his summer would end up heavy on the spying and light on the cleaning.

Something needed cleaning up, all right, but it wasn't the floor. There was a body and it had been declared a suicide. But it had a few too many bullet holes in it and the doctor doing the examination had a few too many stacks of hundred dollar bills sitting in a bag in his office.

Chris knew he couldn't go to the police with this one. The sheriff was the one who brought the body in. So Chris went to the local paper where he finds Tina, a new-in-town reporter looking for her big break. Before he knows what he's doing, he's holding on for dear life in the passenger seat of Tina's Trans Am as they go hunting all over town for clues.

The Morgue and Me is a great mystery. It's fast-paced and funny with enough twists you keep you guessing until the very end. If you like "whodunnits" then definitely check this one out at the LFHS library. Act fast, though, because book check out end May 7th!

Marcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork

The sound Marcelo hears in his head is like the most beautiful music in the world. But it's not quite music. It's like the feeling of music without the music actually being there. Lately, though, the internal music, or IM as Marcelo calls it, has been harder to hear and often it isn't there at all. Maybe there is no IM in the "real world." Marcelo would rather not be in the real world, he'd rather stay at Paterson.

Marcelo likes being at Paterson. It's a school for "people like him," although he's not quite like "people like him" either. The closest thing to what Marcelo "has" is Asperger's syndrome, but he's that's not really the best description either. Marcelo's father, Arturo, thinks that it's about time Marcelo left Paterson to learn to live in the "real world" and go to a public school for his senior year.

It'll be very difficult for Marcelo, so Arturo makes him a deal. If Marcelo can work at Arturo's law firm for the summer and learn to follow the rules of the real world, then Marcelo can return to Paterson for his senior year. But if he cannot successfully follow the rules of the real world, then Marcelo must go to the public high school.

The real world is tough to process. Marcelo is given a job in the mail room under the supervision of Jasmine who informs him that he's not to let other people in the office give him tasks to do. However, Arturo informs Marcelo that he should try to help out Wendell, the son of Arturo's partner, whenever he can. Is the real world always so complicated?

Things really get complicated when Marcelo finds a photograph of a disfigured girl in the trash. Marcelo wants to know what happened to her, but can Marcelo follow the rules of the real world and also solve the mystery of the girl in the photo? In the real world you have to make choices and choices have consequences. Will Marcelo risk his chance to stay at Paterson to satisfy his curiosity? Check out Marcelo in the Real World to find out!