Barbara's Reviews > The Row

Given the large number of men and women incarcerated in the United States, it is shocking that there are so few books for teens featuring protagonists whose parents are in prison. This book makes up for that lack. Seventeen-year-old Riley Beckett loves her father and believes in his innocence even though he is on death row, awaiting execution. Time and time again, she and her mother have had to move because of the reactions of others when they hear that are the family members of the murderer of three women in the Houston area. Ever since she was six, Riley has looked forward to visiting her father in prison as well as reading the letters he sends her. With his execution only a month away, he confesses to the crimes for which he has been incarcerated, a confession he immediately retracts. Riley teams up with Jordan Vega, the son of the police chief who put her father away, in a last-ditch attempt to find an error in the legal strategies or some clue as to who committed those crimes. Riley is isolated and vulnerable and has been subject to quick judgment on the part of others who learn the identity of her father, which makes her slow to trust anyone. As they sift through the evidence, Riley learns that neither of her parents is particularly honest, and that both have held onto secrets or deceived her at some point. The author provides clues that take readers down one path and then another as they try to figure out what's going on. I was sure I had a good suspect, but I turned out to be wrong. Still, when the book concludes, I couldn't help asking myself why in the world Riley's father went to all that trouble to be free from his marriage? Why didn't he simply get a divorce and start fresh somewhere else? The passages in which Riley ponders the honesty of her parents and whether she even knows her father or mother at all were particularly interesting to read. In many ways, Jordan was too good to be true, but I'm glad Riley had someone on whom to lean during her trials. Most of all, though, the book reminded me to always make note of the types of games someone likes to play since there are clues as to his/her behavior and choices based on those games. In the case of Riley's father, life seemed to have been a long game of chess with pawns being sacrificed so that he could eventually have what he wanted. I enjoyed this thriller even though it left me with unanswered questions.