McNamee's (Hate You) taut novel reads like a fast-paced nail-biter of a movie. Narrator Duncan has a summer job working in the lost-and-found department of the Toronto subway system, filing away discarded jackets and trinkets, bored by both the work and his sad-sack boss ("If you think of a half-deflated soccer ball with two of the hairiest ears you've ever seen attached to it, you've got a good picture of Jacob"). Among the lost items he discovers a diary, "a little leather book, with a cover that feels like skin": early entries detail the writer's grisly experiments on animals; he later graduates to arson. In his most recent entries, the writer describes three women he sees every day on the subway and tries to decide which one to kill. When the police brush off Duncan ("You don't seem like a bad kid," says the cop at the precinct. "But maybe you should find a better way to spend your summer vacation"), he enlists his friends Vinny and Wayne to help him catch the would-be killer; an ancillary story line, about Duncan's failed attempt to rescue a drowning girl, sheds light on Duncan's desperate need to be a savior. If aspects of the plot seem a bit overdetermined, there remains much to hook the audience. The timing never falters, and the dialogue stays crisp. Duncan and his friends no clean-cut do-gooders have gritty, complex personalities. A well-turned thriller. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr. 9-12. Acceleration: escalation of increasingly destructive aberrant behavior, the stuff that serial killers are made of. That's what teenage Duncan finds out after he begins investigating a shocking journal that turns up in the Toronto subway lost-and-found where he works. When the police refuse to take it seriously, Duncan enlists the aid of two very different friends to help him find out the identity of the diary's author, who has apparently graduated from eviscerating animals and setting fires to tracking human prey. McNamee smoothly integrates snapshots from Duncan's escapades with a new buddy and his wild best friend, who lives teetering on the edge of the law, with information plucked from the diary. He never overexploits the sensational potential of the subject and builds suspense layer upon layer, while injecting some surprising comedy relief that springs from the boys' friendship. Less convincing is Duncan's guilt for a death not of his making, which is presented as the raison d'etre for his need to find the sick killer. Characters are more than stereotypes here, though it's the mystery and the boys' repartee that give the novel its page-turning punch. --Stephanie Zvirin Copyright 2003 Booklist

Working in the lost-and-found department of Toronto's subway system, teenage Duncan stumbles upon a diary in which a man reveals he is stalking a woman and plans to kill her. Duncan himself has a guilty secret--his failure to save a girl from drowning--that propels him to become personally involved in preventing the murder. Written with mounting tension and suspense, the fast-paced novel is hard to put down. From HORN BOOK Spring 2004, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Gr 8 Up-Seventeen-year-old Duncan is haunted by the fact that he was unable to save a drowning girl a few yards away one fateful afternoon the previous September. This summer he has a job working underground at the Toronto subway lost and found where he uncovers, amid the piles of forgotten junk, an opportunity to exorcise his own guilty demons. When business is slow, Duncan spends his time rummaging through dusty shelves and boxes of unclaimed items. During one of these sessions, he uncovers a strange, leather-bound book that turns out to be the diary of a would-be serial killer. Unable to tear himself from the gory descriptions of tortured animals and arson, he discovers that the writer has started to stalk women on the subway. When the police seem disinterested, the teen takes matters into his own hands, and with the aid of his two best friends, tries to track and trap the murderer before he can strike. This chilling page-turner is all thrills, and the author cleverly manipulates readers' sense of disbelief by eliminating the possibility of police help or parental understanding. What results is one teen's self-conscious yet fast-paced journey into the mind of a cold-blooded killer, and the resulting manhunt will keep readers on the edge of their seats.-Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Seventeen-year-old Duncan hates his summer job in the lost-and-found department of the Toronto Transit Commission. In his office below the subway tunnels, Duncan sorts through and retrieves items lost on buses and trains: a golf club, sunglasses, giant thong underwear, umbrellas, and cell phones. When he looks through a lost diary and finds a would-be murderer's plans for his first victim, he decides to hunt him down. Having failed recently in an attempt to save a drowning girl, he sees this as a chance to redeem himself and stop his nightmares. Enlisting his wise-guy friends, Vinny and Wayne, he stalks the stalker and finds himself in over his head. The creepy, morgue-like setting and the friendship among the teenaged boys are well-drawn, with a fair amount of humor to balance the chills. Though readers may wonder why Duncan fails to consider certain obvious points along the way, this is a well-written, read-it-in-one-gulp thriller. (Fiction. 12+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.