Shelter by Harlan Coben - ADVISABLE

Coben, Harlan  Shelter (A Mickey Boltair novel), 304 pages  Penguin Young Reader’s Group, 2011.  $18.99  Content: Language PG-13 (9 swears); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence PG-13.  Mickey Bolitar is a 6’4” sophomore who is living with his uncle because his father recently died in a car accident and his mother’s way of coping is to do drugs.  On the first day of registration Mickey meets a new girl named Ashley and they become friends.  Three weeks into school Ashley mysteriously disappears and nobody can give Mickey a good enough answer to where she went, so he starts an investigation of his own.  Along the way he befriends a social outcast girl who becomes his best friend and a computer nerd named Spoon.  The clues these three friends find lead them to a strip club where they uncover an abusive and violent manager’s hold over his women employees.  This book was a fun mystery with characters that are enjoyable to follow and it is hard to put down.  This book has a few violent moments and although the strip club is all implied seedy behavior, I believe it should probably be kept in the high school setting.  HS-ADVISABLE.  Reviewer, C. Peterson.