The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

by:  Lucy Christopher
published by:  Chicken House
publish date:  October 3, 2013

Emily’s dad is accused of murdering a teenage girl. Emily is sure he is innocent, but what happened that night in the woods behind their house where she used to play as a child? Determined to find out, she seeks out Damon Hillary, the enigmatic boyfriend of the murdered girl. He also knows these woods. Maybe they could help each other. But he’s got secrets of his own about games that are played in the dark.

This was an audiobook I picked out from the library.  I thought it was be an nice easy listen in the car.  For the most part it was.

Emily's dad is suffering from PTSD.  He spends most of his time in the woods where he feels safe.  He has a bunker out in the woods where he spends his nights until one night he brings home a dead girl.  Emily's dad is going to prison for murder unless she can figure out what happened in the woods that night.  What Emily doesn't know is that some of the kids from her school including the girl that wound up dead at her house play deadly games in the woods.

So, in general, I thought this was a good book.  The one thing that really annoyed me about it was that "The Game" kept being referenced and it was wasn't explained until very late in the book.   The whole time I was like "just tell me what the stupid game is, I promise it won't ruin the book for me!!"  Ultimately, I don't think finding out what the game was did in terms of giving away the story, but if I had to wait to find out what it was, you have to wait too!

This book was a little bit predictable, but overall it was a pretty easy listen/read.  It doesn't seem to be classified as YA, but it doesn't seem to be an adult book either as the main characters are teenagers.  So maybe this is one of those sort of NA books.  If you're a YA mystery reader, I think you'll like this one.