Book Review: Colin Fischer by Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz

Published November 1st 2012 by Razorbill

Age: Young Adult

SOLVING CRIME, ONE FACIAL EXPRESSION AT A TIME

Colin Fischer cannot stand to be touched. He does not like the color blue. He needs index cards to recognize facial expressions.

But when a gun is found in the school cafeteria, interrupting a female classmate's birthday celebration, Colin is the only for the investigation. It's up to him to prove that Wayne Connelly, the school bully and Colin's frequent tormenter, didn't bring the gun to school. After all, Wayne didn't have frosting on his hands, and there was white chocolate frosting found on the grip of the smoking gun...

Colin Fischer is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, and his story--as told by the screenwriters of X-Men: First Class and Thor--is perfect for readers who have graduated from Encyclopedia Brown and who are ready to consider the greatest mystery of all: what other people are thinking and feeling.

I discovered this book by luck, and the spanish title made me curious. It sounded a little bit like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but I loved that book so....

I liked the writing very much. Colin gives us little details for us to understand how is his world. Colin has Asperger and is just starting a new year at school. It's going to be difficult being alone at school while most of his classmates reject him or are cruel to him.

Trying to understand his classmates, there is gunfire at the cafeteria and he, as a Sherlock Holmes' fan, can't stop himself from investigating who is the real responsible.

I liked Colin's evolution. It was sometimes worrying and stressing to read Colin getting in trouble, but I thought it was realistic how he made new friends (and enemies) along the way, and his releationship with his family: parents who don't really know what to do with him, and a sometimes cruel and jealous brother.

I'd recommend Colin Fischer to everyone who wants to read young adult mystery with a peculiar protagonists. Easy to read, only took me a couple of hours, the mystery is not super complicated but has some twists and leaves more for a next book.

More about this book at Goodreads, Amazon.