Another Young Adult novel, this time with less messaging and more just flat out thrills and spills, CASSIE CLARK: OUTLAW features the daughter of the Speaker of the House, a senior congressman, who has disappeared, supposedly run off with a journalist. Cassie's recovering from a bike crash when this occurs, but she knows her Dad, who incidentally is third in line for President of the USA, and knows he would never abandon his family or the job.

Determined to find out what really happened, Cassie Clark becomes a teenage sleuth with a determination that would put many adults to shame. This novel is very much styled as an adventure thriller, with spills and jeopardy aplenty. There's terrorism, drug smuggling, and a touch of romance (and Cassie's very attractive young bodyguard). There's a fair bit of violence and bloodshed as well, and that, combined with the drugs and terrorism, probably mean this is aimed at the older end of the YA market, but it's a bit of fun in a genre that does seem to have been skewed towards fantasy for a few years (she says totally as an outsider who knows nothing about the genre outside what lobs on my reading pile and the occasional chat that passes my way on Twitter).

Still, a bit of fun, bit of rollicking adventure, completely over-the-top in places, this time it was one girl to save the world, rather than the tired, old, battered and bruised hero type that's usually rolled out. Even with a bit of final chapter daftness that was... daft.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/cassie-clark-outlaw ( )