Jessica March Mystery

Jessica Marsh, who is fifteen and "hasn't lost her baby-fat yet," lives with her mother on the top floor of a hundred-year-old triplex in Parkdale, a multicultural area in Toronto. Being an ear-witness to a murder is frightening, but when Raffi, a gentle black man who is her mother's boyfriend, is arrested as the killer, Jess is terrified. While struggling to unravel the crimes, Jess is also dealing with other problems. She has been estranged from her lawyer father for several years, and Raffi's arrest gives her an excuse to reestablish contact. She is harassed at school. Her best friend becomes sexually active and runs away from home. And Jess herself has her own decisions to make about entering into an intimate relationship whe she is pursued by a handsome young refugee from Central America. These problems are typical of those faced by today's teenagers. Jess handles them awkwardly, emotionally, and occasionally with considerable panache.

Jessica March is back, sleuthing in Parkdale. She's on the trail of an extortionist whose known victims are young refugee women students at her school. If the extortionist's victims refuse his demands for money he hurts them, or he shows them the doll. No one who has seen it is unaffected, and no one will explain its power. Jess and a group of female students are chosen to find out if there are other victims, too traumatized to complain. But the group is almost paralyzed by problems of its own: hot disagreements, personality clashes, jealousies, and worst of all, the possibility of an infiltrator. Someone (wittingly or unwittingly) is warning the extortionist. He evades every potential trap. Jess's "sort-of" boyfriend is also giving her trouble. Excluded from the hunt for the extortionist, Jon feels discriminated against. Jess tries to placate him, but in doing so wonders if she's telling him too much. She wonders if he's passing the information on to his friends, including the very attractive and likeable Anthony, who almost fits the description of the extortionist. Or does he?