The Beast of Kukuyo

Gr 8 Up—Fifteen-year-old Rune lives with her brother and grandfather in rural 1992 Kukuyo, Trinidad. She is still trying to recover from the murder of her mother when her classmate Dumpling goes missing and is eventually found dead. Rune remembers how quickly her neighbors and the police forgot about her mother, so she decides to investigate Dumpling's death, just like her favorite TV detective Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote. Rune and her best friend Tiki soon find out that detective work is not as easy as it seems on television. They uncover terrifying and life-threatening secrets. This finalist for the 2017 Burt Award for Caribbean young adult literature is a fast-paced mystery that realistically deals with colorism and violence against women. Descriptions of the time period and setting are adeptly interwoven into this historical mystery.