By Colorado Kids Advisory Board member Kathryn Prose

Title: Crusader
Author: Edward Bloor
Illustrator: (can't find one)
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
Number of Pages: 591


A plain teenage girl named Roberta whose fondest dream is to become a journalist. Her father, a person who desperately wants to make her happy, but is unable to. Suzie, a woman who is prone to disaster, soon-to-be Roberta's stepmother. A preacher who has a dark and deadly secret in his past. Sam, the Arab-American who is suffering from hate crimes at his work.

Arcane, the virtual reality arcade where Roberta and her family work. A failing shopping mall, owned by a shrewd and lying politician determined to win the upcoming election through lies and trickery These people and places, along with undercover detectives, shameless girls, boys with mental disorders, angry teachers, and false accusations truly make Edward Bloor's Crusader one of the best modern novels published.

Roberta Ritter is a fifteen-year-old teenager who attends Memorial High School in Florida. From the outside, she's a normal teenager who picks up a job at the family business, Arcane. She goes shopping occasionally wither her cousin Kristin. She watches a preacher named Stephen Cross on TV, who, in her opinion, helps her with her the dark secret of her past. Also, she has an internship with Channel 57.

That is about all that is normal with Roberta Ritter's life. Arcane is an arcade that has many racist games- in fact, the owner, Roberta's uncle Frank, is forced to have special policies toward different nationalities. For example, if you are an African American, the video "King Kong" would be "experiencing technical difficulties" during your stay at Arcane. Karl, Roberta's cousin has a serious mental disorder, as does Will, a boy who is known as "Ironman." Hawg, a football player in love with the Arkansas Razorbacks, is supposedly committing hate crimes against an Arab-American who works at the mall. Ray Lyons, the man who owns the mall where Roberta works at, is secretly planning to turn the mall into a golf course. Then, he makes up a bunch of stuff about his actions, making him seem like a very noble person. Roberta decides to use her powerful connections with the media to "save the mall" and change Lyons' mind- or can she?

Those difficulties are nothing compared to Roberta's hidden past: her mother was murdered seven years ago, and the identity of the murderer is unknown. Her father is unable to make her truly happy, and above all, he intends to marry Suzie, a woman who is somewhat angry at Roberta for "inaccurate" articles that she published in the mall newspaper. Startling events, such as the return of evidence used by the detectives in solving the murder, lead Roberta to go on a quest to find the identity of her mother's killer- and finds an awful, even dreadful surprise waiting for her.

Bloor addresses many problems of today: lying politicians, drug abuse, murder, and racism. People make a big deal about these things- well, after all, "honest politician" is considered a joke- but they are still there; drug abuse is ruining people's lives every day. Murder stems from drug abuse, and people just can't figure out than when you're in a free country, a melting pot, in fact, you just can't waste time on silly things like racism. Bloor hits them every chance he can get, just to help kids get the message that these things just aren't cool. Then, he describes Roberta's personality, feelings, and actions so well, you think that you're actually there, with her, you feel like her, you see what she sees. He gives you little snatches of evidence against certain people, then he takes them back in later chapters.

What I didn't like about the book was the fact that it centered on death and destruction. It was, in fact, a rather gloomy novel in some situations. For example, the scene where one of Roberta's friends commits suicide, and the other nearly dies. Bloor was kind of hard to follow: he would set up a situation where you thought that he really didn't care about kids having crack cocaine, and then he would have them be arrested for it, and then he would have two extremely nice kids high on drugs. So, after you picked through the mess, I think that he really is against drug abuse and other issues.

I think I would recommend this book to kids who are interested in mystery but would not be offended by some of the material in the book. To be sure, it is certainly not a book for ten-year-old fourth graders. Then, again, it's not for adults, either. It's mainly centered on the teenage group who are after a good mystery. I don't think I'd recommend it to people under the age of twelve or over the age of eighteen, partly because it has some serious stuff in it that some people might consider offensive. As for books that are similar to this one, I think one would be Walker's Crossing. It deals with much of the some stuff that Bloor talks about in his book. All in all, you can say that Crusader by Edward Bloor, is a wonderful book that deserves a rating of "three-and-a-half out of four stars." (July, 2001)