Book Review: Khaki=Killer
A personal note: I don’t know many teens at this stage of my life and especially appreciated Wilson introducing me to some great contemporary kids. Wilson has a vast wealth of teaching and writing experience, and it shows. It turns out that modern kids are not so different from my friends and me at their age! In the fifties, most of us didn’t go as far with alcohol and sex as kids do now, but the risk-taking impulse was definitely there. Like them, we did what we could get away with plus a bit more. Over Wilson’s three books I saw the teens grow and develop, making lots of mistakes, of course—that’s a crucial part of growing up—and also making brave and wise decisions.
From the first book forward, one of the plot lines concerns a purely evil character with a khaki aura. It was fascinating to watch Tad struggle to overcome his terror of this horrible man who wants nothing more than to murder Tad. Tad’s fear remains, as well it should, but he learns to face the fear in a hair-raising scene in Khaki.
My favorite character was Stevie, Tad’s best friend. Stevie’s transformation from a miserable sexual victim of three men—a teacher, a principal, and a kidnapper—to a loving young man with guts and integrity was touching and entirely believable. Wilson writes us inside her characters, even the baddies.
I learned something important as a reviewer from Wilson’s books, which is to wait a couple of weeks to start writing about a book and see what has stuck with me. It’s never the punctuation, grammar, spelling, and occasional factual errors I’ve noticed in the act of reading. Wilson has her share, as do I and most of the other authors I’ve read. What sticks with me from Wilson’s book is my wish to know more about her characters. I think a fourth book in the series will be forthcoming; I hope so, and I won’t miss it.