Crusader

Crusader

Roberta Ritter has a boring life, until a new virtual reality war game called Crusader arrives at the local arcade, drawing her into a strange world of mystery and crime. A steamy, swampy Florida setting and the threat of a repressed memory are two of the elements in Edward Bloor's first young adult novel, Tangerine , that made it an instant suburban gothic classic. His follow-up, Crusader , delves even deeper into the dark side of suburbia, exposing racism, virtual violence, and even murder behind the sunny facade of a Florida strip mall. Fifteen-year-old Roberta works hard every afternoon and weekend in the family business, a virtual reality arcade in the West End Mall. She keeps her mind off the fact that the arcade is slowly going under and that her father ignores her existence, but she cannot ignore the fact of her mother's brutal murder seven years ago. Roberta's quest to find her mother's killer weaves together several skillfully constructed subplots, including a shady political scheme to ruin the mall, real and imagined hate crimes against an Arab store owner, and how the Crusader itself, a virtual reality game, serves as the catalyst that ignites and unites these seemingly unrelated factors in Roberta's life. Bloor's brooding, densely plotted page turner is an incredibly original novel that will engage teens on several levels. Though it is almost 400 pages long, the nonstop action and many startling revelations will keep teens transfixed until the very last sentence. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert Grade 7 Up-Roberta Ritter, 16, works at her journalism studies in her south Florida high school, and works just as hard for nothing at Arcane Experiences, a small arcade run by her father and uncle. Knowing that certain of the virtual-reality games are likely to offend certain customers, the arcade has an unwritten policy-African Americans are told that King Kong is out of order, Asians hear the same apology about the Mekong Massacre, etc. In the newest "experience," customers take the role of a Christian crusader slaying infidels in the Holy Land. When someone vandalizes the store of an Arab-American businessman at the mall, neither the police nor the victim realize that it's mall politics, not prejudice, behind it. Roberta is also having nightmares about her mother, whose murder seven years earlier was never solved. The teen's association with the officer investigating the alleged hate crimes brings her some evidence relating to her mother's killer. All these plot threads and more come together in a satisfying but disturbing ending. Roberta is a strong and sympathetic character who learns to take care of herself, but what she faces along the way may surprise and disturb readers. People die, and some wrongs are never righted. Although it is longer and more complex, Crusader resembles Bloor's Tangerine (Harcourt, 1997). Like that title, it is an honest look at a contemporary world in which all stories do not end happily. Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. A stagnant shopping mall in South Florida is a crowded center stage for this large-canvas story from Bloor (Tangerine, 1997), who weaves labyrinthine plot strands, from politics and the power of the media to alienation and personal redemption, while an exploration of racism hovers in the background. Smart, Seuss-spouting Roberta, 15, is capable and knowing beyond her years, raising herself on boxes of macaroni, neglected by a father whose presence is primarily the stack of rented videos he leaves for her on the counter. Her only family is the drunken uncle (in fact, most of the adults are bad guys, drunks, liarseven murderers) she works for at the failing virtual reality video arcade, and his troubled children. As the story unfolds, remarkably resilient Roberta comes closer to solving the riddle of her mother's murder seven years ago; the solution hits close to home, and is only one among plot strands vying for attention as Roberta schools herself to become a reporter, conducts her own surveillance of local hate crimes, faces the death of a friend and an elderly guardian, saves the mall from bankruptcy, and inherits a Hallmark store. Roberta's transformation from androgenous geek to self-sufficient, truth-seeking heroine is believable throughout, and, despite an overdose of detail, readers will be patient with a cast of characters for whom a bout of chicken pox is revelatory and a near-death in a freezer is life-affirming. Roberta emerges from her war a contemporary crusader, strong and whole and sure. (Fiction. 13-15) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.