Description:
Where is Vinny? He was right beside Jasper when they came out of the Hanging Gardens nightclub late one Saturday night. But then a crowd of kids piling out of the other Melbourne hot spots swirled by, and suddenly Vinny was gone. He isn't back inside the club, he isn't on the train, he isn't crashed on the sofa when Jasper gets home, and his car is still parked at the curb. Jasper and his mates Sam and Josh tell themselves reassuring stories about where Vinny might be, as do Vinny's mother and uncle and girlfriend. But as Saturday night ticks into Sunday and still no one has seen Vinny, his strange disappearance begins to wear each of them down in separate ways. When at last Vinny arrives home, dazed and bewildered by the continuing darkness of the night he thinks is still Saturday, the explanation of the lost day is even stranger and more destructive than anything they had imagined. Like Michael Cadnum's Zero at the Bone, this short novel by Australian writer Judith Clarke (The Heroic Life of Al Capsella) explores the effect of a baffling disappearance on those who care about the missing person. From the first paragraph, older teens will find themselves drawn into this taut story, as the suspense builds steadily to a creepy but credible climax. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell
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