TURN THE CUP AROUND

In a book that is part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, a 12-year-old girl unravels the secret of her shadowy past. Evie has lived at a Maine bed-and-breakfast with her artistic, fortune-telling grandmother since the death of her mother and hospitalization of her father six years ago. A summer storm in which Evie glimpses a phantom figure in the night sets off a chain of events that propels her to delve into long unanswered questions. Falling into a rocky crevice, she stumbles across some anonymous paintings on the chamber walls. There are three possible painters: the professor who is staying at the bed- and-breakfast, the art teacher, Julia, or her own grandmother. In an accidental meeting, Evie comes face to face with a stranger among the rocks and finds herself staring into the blue eyes— eyes she almost recognizes—of a madman. This chance encounter solves the riddle of the paintings, but precipitates the reunion of father and daughter. The plot is so tangled that several threads of subplots remain undeveloped. The title offers a neat metaphor for looking at life in a more positive light, but the book leaves readers dangling between the tease of a suspense novel never fully realized and a character study only half- sketched. (Fiction. 10-12)