All these bodies / Kendare Blake.

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Title:

All these bodies / Kendare Blake.

Author:

Blake, Kendare, author.

ISBN:

9780062977168

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

288 pages : map ; 22 cm

General Note:

"#1 New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series"--Dust jacket.

Abstract:

In the late 1950s in the Midwest, a serial killer has been draining their victims of blood, leaving them otherwise undisturbed in their cars and homes. When a fifteen-year-old girl is found covered in blood amidst the latest corpses, she confides only inthe sheriff's son but her story is unbelievable at best.

August, 1958. A string of murders plagues the Midwest. The victims are found in their cars and in their homes, even in their beds: their bodies drained, but with no blood anywhere. September 18, 1858. The Carlson family is slaughtered in their Minnesota farmhouse, and the case gets its first lead. Marie Catherine Hale is found at the scene, is covered in blood from head to toe. At first she is mistaken for a survivor... but not a drop of the blood is hers. Michael Jensen, son of the local sheriff, yearning to become a journalist, never imagined that the biggest story in the country would fall into his lap. He is pulled into the investigation when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to. As she recounts her version of the story, it fallsto Michael to find the truth. -- adapted from jacket

Subject Term:

Serial murderers -- United States -- Juvenile fiction.

Teenagers -- Juvenile fiction.

Young adult fiction.

Serial murderers -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Mystery and detective stories.

YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Thrillers & Suspense / Supernatural.

YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural.

YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Historical / United States / 20th Century.

Serial murderers. (OCoLC)fst01113110

Teenagers. (OCoLC)fst01145551

Murderers -- Juvenile fiction.

Murderers -- Fiction.

Teenagers -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Minnesota -- Juvenile fiction.

Middle West -- Juvenile fiction.

Minnesota. (OCoLC)fst01204560

United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155

Minnesota -- Fiction.

Genre:

Novels.

Fiction. (OCoLC)fst01423787

Historical fiction. (OCoLC)fst01726640

Horror fiction. (OCoLC)fst01921684

Young adult works. (OCoLC)fst01726790

Historical fiction.

Horror fiction.

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library	Teen Fiction Book Hardback	120791003064514	T BLA	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

* Indie Next List Pick * Indie Bestseller *

Sixteen bloodless bodies. Two teenagers. One impossible explanation. In this edge-of-your-seat mystery from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kendare Blake, the truth is as hard to believe as it is to find.

Summer 1958. A gruesome killer plagues the Midwest, leaving behind a trail of bodies completely drained of blood.

Michael Jensen, an aspiring journalist whose father happens to be the town sheriff, never imagined that the Bloodless Murders would come to his backyard. Not until the night the Carlson family was found murdered in their home. Marie Catherine Hale, a diminutive fifteen-year-old, was discovered at the scene--covered in blood. She is the sole suspect in custody.

Michael didn't think that he would be part of the investigation, but he is pulled in when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to. As Marie recounts her version of the story, it falls to Michael to find the truth: What really happened the night that the Carlsons were killed? And how did one girl wind up in the middle of all these bodies?

Reviews (4)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 8 Up--Michael Jenson has always wanted to be a journalist. Over the course of the summer in 1958, Michael has followed what the newspapers have dubbed "the Bloodless Murders"--a string of violent murders across the Midwest where the victims have been found with every drop of blood drained from their bodies--and his daydreams of stumbling across a story this huge grow by the day. Then the unthinkable happens. Michael's small Minnesota town is rocked when the Carlson family is found murdered in their living room, drained of all their blood, with 15-year-old Marie Catherine Hale found lingering in the next room, drenched in blood. Suddenly, Michael is thrust into the national spotlight when Marie insists that she will only tell her story to him. Blake based this story on the real-life murder spree of teenagers Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate and the murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. The protagonists are well-developed--timid, polite Michael and bold, headstrong Marie carry the story forward on their own. The scenes in which Marie is recounting the murders to Michael are easily the book's most riveting. Despite the fascinating inspiration and characterization, the novel overall suffers from uneven pacing and a repetitive narrative. However, readers may find the true crime aspect and vague supernatural layer thrilling enough to enjoy the book. VERDICT A quick murder mystery that may not satisfy hardcore thriller fans but will no doubt be extremely popular due to its macabre plot. --Tyler Hixson, Brooklyn P.L..

Publisher's Weekly Review

Through an assured voice and a vividly wrought small-town atmosphere, Blake (the Three Dark Crowns series) swiftly draws readers into this tense historical thriller inspired by a real-life murder spree. In the summer of 1958, the Bloodless Murders, so dubbed for the string of human victims found drained of their blood, strikes fear in the Midwest. When the bodies of the Carlson family are discovered in Black Deer Falls, Minn., there's a break in the case in the form of Marie Catherine Hale, 15 and white, who's found covered in blood at the scene of the crime. As the public pressure for answers mounts, Marie--in custody at the local jail--will only speak with 17-year-old Michael Jensen, a white aspiring journalist who's also the sheriff's son. After she offers up an impossible-seeming explanation, truth-obsessed Michael must determine whether she's being honest or exploiting his trust in her. Though the duo's taut back-and-forth can feel repetitive, the prosecutor's push to try Marie in a state where she's eligible for the death penalty keeps the stakes high throughout this well-crafted mystery for fans of In Cold Blood and None Shall Sleep. Ages 14--up. Agent: Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, Foundry Literary + Media. (Sept.)

Kirkus Review

A "nobody from nowhere" gets the scoop of a lifetime. A paperboy and aspiring journalist in 1959 Black Deer Falls, Minnesota, 17-year-old Michael Jensen's heard about the previous summer's killings known as the Bloodless Murders or Dracula Murders. The body count so far is 12 blood-drained corpses found across the Midwest. Then blood-drenched 15-year-old Marie Catherine Hale is discovered at the scene of the Carlson triple homicide in Michael's hometown. Ultimately unknowable Marie--cast as something of a femme fatale in contrast to Michael's bland, Everyman foil--doesn't deny her involvement but won't identify her much-mythologized accomplice. Infuriating an ambitious district attorney, the police, and national news reporters, Marie chooses to tell her slippery, shifting, and allegedly supernatural story solely to Michael. More of a sympathetic confessor than a callous interrogator, Michael works to tease out Marie's motives even as his community and the world question his entanglement with the case. Although she inserts a supernatural element, Blake otherwise grounds the true-crime--style tale--which acknowledges the influence of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood--in real-life issues like domestic abuse, poverty, privilege, and sexism. Paradoxically, even as the book scrutinizes the darker human appetite for serial killers, criminal escapades, and vengeance, it caters to these same urges. The enigmatic ending might leave readers without resolution, but like Marie's "truths," the full story may never be known. Main characters read as White by default. An insightful look at our morbid curiosity about murderers. (map, author's note) (Thriller. 14-adult) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

It's the summer of 1958, and a string of strange murders have begun in the Midwest, baffling and terrifying those who live to hear about them. Not much links the victims except the way they die: their bodies drained of blood, the crime scenes clean. In Black Deer Falls, Minnesota, Michael Jensen, the sheriff's son, dreams of becoming a journalist, and when the killer attacks his neighbors, he may have the story of a lifetime. This murder is like all the others except for one crucial difference: fifteen-year-old Marie Catherine Hale is at the scene, covered in blood, and she's willing to tell Michael her story. But the story she has to tell is strange, at times horrifying, and flecked with impossible details, and Michael may not want to hear the end. There's a blush of the supernatural here, but Blake (Three Dark Crowns, 2016) takes a sharp pivot out of dark fantasy for a dispassionate thriller, inspired by real murders, that reads like true crime. A chilling descent into the human psyche.