The Secrets of the Twisted Cross

The Twisted Cross is about a 14 year old boy named Orville Jacques who was aked to solve the mystery of who was creating Jewish hate crimes in his hometown, Belltown. He has to go undercover to investigate who is committing these rude and horrible crimes. What he discovers is nothing at all like what he expects. He thinks these crimes were committed by secretly by teens, but the people who are involved, he would have never expected. Mystery books are great books to read and always get you stuck to the pages wanting to figure out what's going to happen next. That's why I encourage kids of all ages to read the Belltown mystery series, especially The Twisted Cross. I think this is a great book for all ages and teaches people a lot of life lessons. The events that go on in this book could actually happen, so you could learn alot of things to escape danger just like Orville had to do to save his life and many other people's lives too. I really enjoyed reading The Twisted Cross. As soon as I picked the book up I couldn't put it down, it was so fascinating!

As a teacher I am always on the lookout for a good story to share with my class. My fifth graders are a thirsty bunch for mysteries so when a colleague told me about her friend T.M. Murphy I had to read one of his stories. Six stories later my class is now reading the Secrets of the Twisted Cross. This story finds our hero, Orville Jacques, trying to uncover a series of hate crimes against the Jewish population of his town. The story takes us through a lot of twists, turns, and false alarms until the mystery begins to unravel. This is a good story, mystery, and teacher. It makes us look at who we are, and how we relate with our neighbors. On top of that it is a real page turner. I can't wait to finish the story with my class. Hopefully Mr. Murphy is finishing number 7 so I can share the next Belltown Mystery with them.