Swipe Right for Murder

May 27, 2019
In this fast-paced thriller, a gay teen visiting New York City is caught between terrorists and authorities after a hotel hookup via app goes horribly wrong. Mistaken for a hacker in possession of vital data, Aidan Jamison is targeted by a ruthless organization known as the Swans, who think that he can help them pursue their murderous agenda against anti-LGBTQ politicians and activists. Unable to persuade them that they’ve got the wrong guy, Aidan goes on the run across New York State, only to get pulled into the FBI ’s custody. Trusting no one and increasingly sympathetic to the Swans’ pro-LGBTQ mission, Aidan desperately seeks to become more than a pawn in everyone else’s plans. Milman (Scream All Night) deftly portrays a modern teen in an unwinnable situation. Aidan is genre savvy, resourceful, and resilient even as he wrestles with self-doubt and past trauma. As he pinballs from one perilous situation to the next, however, the story bogs down under its own increasing implausibility, with the Swans losing credibility as their plans unfold. Nevertheless, this timely, if over-the-top, thriller is rife with humorous asides, pop culture references, and historical anchors that reinforce its parallels to current political and cultural headlines. Ages 12–up. Agent: Victoria Marini, Irene Goodman Agency.

June 1, 2019
Seventeen-year-old Aidan Jamison stumbles into a terrorist plot in Milman's (Scream All Night, 2018) woozy page-turner. Alone in New York for health tests, Aidan uses an app to hook up with an older gentleman at his hotel. Following the encounter and a brief siesta, Aidan wakes up to find his companion dead. A phone conversation with a mysterious man results in a case of mistaken identity, and Aidan must go on the run or else face the consequences for the death of his one-time lover. Even worse, he's now a target of the Swans, a domestic terrorist network targeting anti-gay groups and politicians. The Swans believe Aidan holds a key piece of code necessary for the group's cyberwarfare efforts. As the body count ramps up, Aidan goes in deeper to uncover the terrorist plot, struggling to reconcile his mixed feelings over the Swans' actions. Things shake up when he meets Shiloh, an older man who offers help at suspiciously opportune moments. An addicting read, Milman's second novel interrogates the costs of political extremism as a tool for social change before curbing these efforts in favor of propping up a somewhat generic villain during the book's third act. The author nonetheless plumbs richer emotional depths via Aidan's struggles to make peace with his brother's unexpected death and a torturous affair with a former friend's father. A white default is assumed. Don't swipe left on this one. (Thriller. 14-18)

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Starred review from May 1, 2019
Grades 10-1 *Starred Review* The thing is, Aidan was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he trolled the DirtyPaws app, he was just looking for a hookup. Sure, the guy he ended up with (Beno�t, a "Silver-Foxy-Anderson-Coopery-Roger-Sterling-y dude") is being a little weird, but this is a sex-on-demand app. But then Aidan wakes up to find Beno�t dead next to him and a threatening voice on the other end of his phone: if he doesn't hand over the item, the mysterious caller will come after him. The only problem is that Aidan, who has a past he doesn't want anyone digging into, has no idea what the item in question is. Then the pieces start to fall into place: he's entangled with a terrorist organization called the Swans, an extremist group targeting those who threaten gay rights. Aidan's conflicted?sure, the Swans are terrorists, but he understands their motives?and by the time he meets Shiloh, a guy who shows up on a train right when Aidan needs him, he's completely turned around. Hitchcock gets a jolt of social justice in Milman's (Scream All Night, 2018) sophomore novel. What could have been just a clever reconstruction of classic mystery conventions is elevated by wry humor and genuine emotional intensity. As a thriller, it's twisted and engaging; as a character study, it has lingering, affecting aftershocks.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)