Dion James has been a fan of Alcott-Simpson's, the big department store in the city where he lives, since the time he first saw it, back when he was eight or nine and shining shoes on the sidewalks. The first time he went inside, it made an impression: After the ordinary winter world outside, dirty gray with a cold wet wind, inside Alcott-Simpson's was like being on a different planet. The warmth was clean and smooth and loaded with something that was too high class to be called a smell. As a matter of fact, I was still standing just inside the door trying to sort out the smell—I'd gotten about as far as new cloth and leather and perfume and dollar bills—when somebody came along and invited me out. From then on, I was always prowling around Alcott-Simpson's—and being invited out from time to time. (5)Dion, who's now almost fifteen, lives with his dad in a ramshackle Victorian that his dad inherited from his family: his dad grew up rich but doesn't much care about money, and now doesn't have much of it. The Victorian, once a family home, is now subdivided, with Dion and his dad living on the second floor and renting out the ground floor to a family and the attic to three college students—though everyone's always hanging out on the second floor, anyhow. Dion's dad is a music teacher, and isn't very strict about collecting on payments from his students—or from the people he rents his house to—and Dion resents how his dad's so easygoing as to be kind of a pushover. So Dion works odd jobs to get cash for himself, and continues hanging out in the opulence of Alcott-Simpson's, where over the years he's made a few friends among the clerks.But not all is well at Alcott-Simpson's: there have been rumors of "some kind of gang of thieves and vandals," and one day Dion sees a well-dressed girl who's apparently shoplifting an expensive cashmere sweater (15). It's weird, though: the girl, with a store detective in close pursuit, turns down a hallway that Dion knows is a dead-end leading only to locked storerooms. But the detective quickly comes back, looking dazed, and there's no trace of the girl. That's not the only strange thing that happens, and isn't the only time Dion sees that girl: soon, he's obsessed with the question of who she is and what, exactly, is going on.I read this book when I had a bad cold and reading anything other than a kids' book seemed impossibly mentally taxing, and it was good company in my feverish state, but it's a pretty slight mystery/romance. My favorite thing about it might be the great (and very 1960s) illustrations by Alton Raible.
In May 1989, this paperback wasn't even good enough to warrant space in your backpack. Now, it's a three-star GoodRead. If that doesn't give the author a boost when she sees your review, I don't know what possibly could. http://www.zksnyder.com/
