Official Review: The Red Coat by Madge H. Gressley

[ALynnPowers]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Red Coat" by Madge H. Gressley.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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The Red Coat is a young adult mystery novel by Madge H. Gressley. This is the first book in a Nancy Drew-like series that follows Sophie Collins, amateur sleuth. But Sophie isn't your typical young teenager; she's spent the past few years of her life on her own since her mother disappeared. After running away from her foster home, she has been living on the streets in her mother's home town. One day she finds a red coat in the dumpster with a few interesting items in the pockets. Unfortunately, the owner of the coat is determined to retrieve the coat and its items, and Sophie is no longer safe. With these secret items she has found, some sneaky eavesdropping, and help from a few adult friends she has made, Sophie uncovers some significant information about a mysterious death.

This book is fast-paced and makes for an ultra quick read. In fact, I read the whole book in just a couple of hours while traveling on a train. We are thrown into the heart of the story right from the beginning, and then Sophie's background is revealed smoothly and naturally as the plot moves along. While I typically enjoy stories that move along quickly and are not bogged down with too much detail and overly explained backgrounds, I found the pacing of this story just a bit too quick, to the point that it felt rushed. The ending was especially rushed and anticlimactic, with the entire "mystery" wrapped up in a single paragraph.

Young adult books are my absolute favorite, and I've read hundreds of them over the past few years. Personally, I have a hard time classifying this book in the young adult genre. The simplicity of the story and the low maturity level of the characters (Sophie in particular) seem more geared toward younger children or middle grade readers. However, the story does contain adult language and other slightly adult content (such as the consumption of alcohol), which seems all right for young adult readers but too inappropriate for younger readers. The target audience for this book is very unclear to me. I think that it is too mature for preteens, but teens would find the content and characters too babyish compared to other books within this genre.

Additionally, the story could use a professional editor to clean up the typographical errors (which were honestly not that bad, mostly punctuation and capitalization errors) and perhaps make some other suggestions to improve the overall quality of the story and the presentation of the characters. For example, one character was referred to as "old man Johnson" each time he was mentioned, and every man's wife was consistently called "the missus." I found this repetition to be a bit annoying and perhaps even a bit outdated. The slang and colloquial speech was also slightly troublesome to read as well.

Overall, I think that this book is a good first draft, but it needs some revision before I can justify recommending it to any specific audience. If the language were cleaned up a bit, I could see middle grade readers and fans of Nancy Drew finding enjoyment in this story. Sophie's background with a life on the streets provides a unique perspective, and there seems to be a lot of potential with her character development. However, in its current state, I give this book a rating of 1 out of 4 stars.

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The Red Coat
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[AuthoressofMystery]

Good review! I too felt it had potential, but was more of a good first draft. I didn't realize I could just say so!