A high-stakes romp with heart, humor, and nerve.
DeLuca’s gripping, fast-paced novel takes a reckless but bighearted teenager deep into a dangerous world of drugs, deception, and difficult choices. Marshall Morris has a habit of rushing toward trouble before common sense can catch up. When fentanyl begins devastating his Texas community, Marshall is drawn into Detective Ben Clements’s investigation of a dangerous drug network. What begins as an unconventional undercover assignment soon tests Marshall’s judgment, relationships, and ability to recognize when courage crosses into recklessness.
DeLuca blends coming-of-age concerns with crime, romance, humor, and an urgent examination of the fentanyl crisis. Marshall is an appealingly imperfect center for the story. Friendly, loyal, impulsive, and almost constitutionally unable to ignore someone in trouble, he repeatedly acts from generous motives while underestimating the consequences. That tension gives his misadventures substance: readers can admire his nerve while sharing the frustration of those who wish he would think first.
His relationship with Mallory Jolen adds an important emotional dimension. Their devotion is complicated by diverging college plans and the uncertainties of approaching adulthood, allowing DeLuca to explore the uneasy moment when young love encounters individual ambition. Mallory’s caution plays effectively against Marshall’s spontaneity, and their exchanges bring warmth and comic friction without reducing her to the sensible girlfriend assigned to restrain an unruly hero.
The drug investigation steadily darkens the novel’s buoyant tone. A teenager’s fentanyl death makes the danger immediate, while counterfeit pills and peer pressure place the subject firmly within a recognizable YA landscape. DeLuca is direct about the risks, occasionally making the cautionary purpose conspicuous, but the message remains connected to people and choices rather than slipping into instruction.
Detective Ben Clements provides a useful adult counterweight to Marshall. His understanding of danger exposes the difference between bravery and impulsiveness, while Marshall’s undercover role creates suspense precisely because following instructions is so contrary to his personality. Humor persists even as the danger increases, keeping the story accessible without diminishing its seriousness.
The pacing is brisk, propelled by dialogue, questionable decisions, and escalating complications. DeLuca’s straightforward approach keeps the novel accessible, even when its cautionary message occasionally comes to the fore. Throughout, he maintains an engaging balance between adolescent uncertainty and thriller momentum, grounding the criminal plot in Marshall’s concerns about love, family, responsibility, and growing up.
Readers who enjoyed the social urgency of Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give and the suspense of Karen M. McManus’s One of Us Is Lying will find much to enjoy.
***
Pub date April 1, 2025
Alliance Publishing and Media, LLC
ISBN 979-8227761903
Price $13.99 Paperback, $3.99 Kindle edition
