When Denny brings a great tune to rehearsal, Ace is devastated that Denny, who rarely practices, is a better songwriter than he is. It's more difficult than he thought it would be. While Denny tweets their every move and their clean-freak drummer, Pig, polishes everything in sight, Ace tries to write a song that will win at the next local teen songwriting contest. Ace discovers that he loves playing guitar and electric bass. Having, so far, been severely challenged when it comes to meeting girls, they decide to start a band. Fans of McClintock’s amiably gritty Dooley Takes a Fall (BCCB 9/08) will appreciate this speedy, satisfying suspense tale.At a Battle of the Bands event, Ace and his best friend Denny notice that girls like musicians, no matter how dorky the dudes might be. The underlying family drama is sadly plausible, and the Dellomondos are a credible hardscrabble clan with a mixture of stability and defeat. His relationship with Gillian is realistically low key even as it’s pivotal, and she’s gently and specifically characterized as a bit of a drifting soul herself. Staunton (author of Power Chord, BCCB 2/11) brings an engaging solidity to the currently popular impostor plot, and fake Danny is an intriguing character-a genuinely talented, compulsive grifter who’s great at understanding everybody’s behavior but his own, and who’s more of a lost soul than he realizes. as soon as he can, but it’s not that simple: there’s Gillian, a girl he’s starting to really like, and the detective from Danny’s case is unhealthily interested in Danny’s ostensible return. Pseudo-Danny’s plan is to put some money together and get out of there and back to the U.S. Danny’s mother, however, is apparently still struggling with substance abuse and keeps her distance, and Danny’s half-brother, Tyson, is dopesick and completely thrown by Danny’s return. As the returning lost relative, he’s tearfully embraced by Shannon, “his” older half-sister, who moves him into her house and tries to integrate him into the life she thinks he should have. He knows who he plans to be, however: Danny Dellomondo, an Ontario boy who disappeared a few years ago, and who would now be fifteen. After a youth of foster homes, assumed identities, and scams, our narrator isn’t sure what his real name actually is.
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