Name: The Things You Find in Rockpools
ISBN: 9780995778238

Gregg Dunnett

A teenage girl disappears from a beach town at the height of summer. Two months later the police still can't find her. And a quirky 11-year-old steps in to help.

The Things You Find in Rockpools

Lynn Braden

Billy and his father, Sam, have lived alone on Lornea Island for several years. Billy spends a lot of his time working on his many projects that he hopes will someday lead him to be a marine biologist. His dad works as a handyman for a local hotel keeping the rental cabins repaired and up to date for tourists who spend the summer on the island. His father's real passion is surfing, and he spends time almost everyday with his friends at the beach. Billy has decided to use the time that his father is surfing to investigate the case of a tourist named Olivia Curran who has been missing for months. He begins following a local man, Mr. Foster, because several of the kids in his school think he is a pedophile, and some of Billy's observations seem to point to him as the culprit. As Billy becomes more deeply involved, it isn't long before he realizes that the Olivia Curran case is more complicated than he thinks, especially when some of the clues point closer to home.
The Things you find in Rockpools is a very long story that takes many turns before finally revealing the answer to the big mystery of the missing girl, Olivia Curran. The story is told in first person from Billy's perspective, but some of the chapters are written in third person as information is presented by the police detectives who are on the case. There are many pieces of evidence that come out of the blue right at the end that lead to the resolution, leaving the reader to wait until the final few pages for the meat of the story. Overall, this is an interesting mystery that could have been better with more work on pacing.

The Things You Find in Rockpools

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