Boy on Hold by J.D. Spero
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hen is a seven year old boy who loves hedgehogs and lives with his mother and his older brother Tyler who he looks up to and loves with all his heart, but he knows that there is something going on with Tyler when he starts to withdraw into himself. One night in October, Hen sneaks out of the house to find a hedgehog so that he can call it Louis and keep it as a pet, he is cold, but he is determined to sit in his tent and wait for his new friend to turn up, however, despite his best efforts not to, he falls asleep and is woken up by a terrible screeching sound. As he tries to work out where it came from, he looks to his neighbours house and sees shadows moving in the windows in front of the light from the television set, he continues to hear shouting and then sees one of the shadows attack the other and the sounds stop. Hen has no idea what he just witnessed but he is terrified and goes and curls back up in his tent until the next morning when his mother comes running out thinking he is missing, but he finds it really hard to find the words to tell her and in the end decides not to, it is only when the next door neighbours son calls and tells the family that his mother can’t look after Hen after school like she normally would, so Tyler is asked to step in, he agrees to, albeit grudgingly as he leaves the house t o go to school with his best friend.

As Tyler is heading to school, he is trying to make sense of what is going on in his head, he feels worse than normal, but can’t remember why, it worries him a little, however, not as much as it should, so he tries his best to ignore it and get on with his day and as usual it is music and cigarettes which are helping him to do this, at least until he heads home from school where he decides to spend some quality time with his brother, but this doesn’t go to plan either when he thinks he hears something and it sets off his other issues. Hen has an idea of what is happening, so he just leaves his big brother to himself until his best friend arrives, Hen doesn’t like him, but he doesn’t know how he can avoid him, until his neighbours son comes round to fix their window, he also tells them that their neighbour is in hospital after being attacked, this is when Hen realises what he has seen was real after all.

It is while they are fixing the window that a police officer knocks on the door and takes Tyler and his best friend in for questioning, this isn’t something anyone expected to happen, least of all Hen, but the longer that they stay at the station, the more worried Tyler’s family becomes and none of them want to believe that he is involved, especially Hen and his mother, but as the case progresses, Hen is determined to tell someone what he saw and to convince them that Tyler is innocent, but as Tyler’s mental issues manifest in more serious ways, will they be able to work out who was the culprit and who is innocent in this tragedy? This is murder mystery which deals with mental health and its effects on people in a thrilling murder mystery you will not want to put down.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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