Tennessee USA has been the target of a serial kidnapper since June 1 2001. Boys are taken, but miraculously returned to their families a year
later. As boys vanish over the years again and again on June 1st, the kidnapper is dubbed the Gemini Thief.
None of the returned victims can give any clues to where they were for a year or who the kidnapper is. All they know is that they were fed, clothed and held somewhere with no windows. The kidnapper always wears a welding helmet and baggy overalls when talking to the boys through a glass panel.
Like everyone around her, Thea Delacroix and her friends know of the Gemini thief, but when her cousin Aulus disappears, it becomes personal. The police want to believe Aulus has run away. His home life isn’t great and no one wants to think that the Gemini Thief has struck in their own town. But Thea refuses to believe the authorities and with her boyfriend Nick and best friends Gladys and Tank (Thomas), she begins her own investigation.
Like the police, their hours of work and research goes nowhere. Where is Aulus? A body is discovered, thought to be one of the June boys, and the first to have died. Connected with the body is a keychain that Thea recognises. It points straight at her own father.
No! Surely not. Another giant arrow is pointing at her father. Thea has just learned that all his trips to Canada over the past 10 years have been a lie. Shocked, then worried for he dad’s innocence, let alone sanity, Thea cannot ignore the clues.
Meanwhile, Aulus is alive in a bunker with other boys. He is writing letters for someone to find if they aren’t released, but found one day. The Welder, as the victims have all dubbed the kidnapper, has stopped providing food and water. Aulus knows their days are numbered and feels responsible for looking after the others. The possible day of release is soon. They just have to survive until then…
With more twists and turns than a mountain road, The June Boys will have you guessing all the way through. Thea Delacroix is the main character, dealing with bombshell after bombshell while she struggles to investigate her cousin’s disappearance.
The FBI are also investigating and Thea has a personal link through her boyfriend’s sister, but neither seem to be getting anywhere in finding the last lot of missing boys. The tension rises slowly but surely, switching between Thea’s point of view and letters written by her missing cousin while in captivity.
The ending reveal will have you holding your breath…
After the novel is finished there is an epilogue where one of the victims is being interviewed 10 years later. This interview gave me a Blair Witch vibe, thinking that maybe there was some truth in The June Boys story, but it is clever fiction, not true crime.
Enjoyable read.
Author – Court Stevens
Age – 14+
(2020, Penguin, Action, Betrayal, Courage, Crime, Family, Friendship, Historical, Love, Mystery, Secret, Castle, Building, Kidnap, Drowning, Body, Bunker, Faith, Blame, Guilt, Tension, Neglect, Graduation, Final year, Trust, Arrest, FBI)