The Road of the Dead

The novel is a young adult thriller written by Kevin Brooks. With my sibling working at the local library as a book reviewer, I get an awful lot of opportunity to be a bookworm of books for ages 12 and up, but this was the first time I took avail of it and I have to say it wasn't bad at all.
Rachael's death comes as a shock to her family in London. While the police are investigating her death, her brother is fuming with rage because they can't yet get her body to bury, as until the investigation is over, the body can't be buried. So Ruben sets out to the moorland, Lychcombe, where his sister was raped, killed and left naked. To keep his hot headed brother from trouble, Cole sets along with him. Cole has a great gift - he is able to sense things from his relations from time to time. He was able to feel Rachael in her last moments and knows that both his sister's killer is also dead.
On the way, they meet Rachael's friend, who bears striking resemblance to her. While living at their place (with her husband), the brothers feel that there is something that Rachel's friend, Abbie is not telling them. After some roaming, threatening, they find out that a huge corporation is trying to buy the whole place so that they can convert the locality into a resort, but Abbie was refusing to sell, since it is her ancestral place. Meanwhile, her husband, an unscrupulous fellow, sets her up with the contractor (just to scare her). But Abbie comes to know of the plans and lends Rachael her raincoat that wet night. Mistaking her, the hireman does more damage than needed. To cover the whole conspiracy up, the hireman is also killed by the contractor. The story ends with both brothers returning to London.
The story was well written and progressed smoothly. There was quite a bit of violence for young adult, but I never understand what is an acceptable level of violence at any age. Nevertheless, reading it, there was some level of anticipation in trying to figure out how Ruben and Cole found out the mystery, but the author bursts the mystery quite soggily in claiming Ruben never needed to know how Cole found out. So the whole anticipation seemed pointless. Also because I had read a few more thrillers than an average young reader would have, I had figured out what had happened to Rachael, when Abbie was introduced to have a striking resemblance to her - it must have been a mix-up. My only motivation to read further was to find out why and I suppose that was cleared in a few more chapters too. So until you are looking for some dramatic, soap opera-like ending to the novel, the plot unfolds in a few chapters. However, it was one of the best books I read with some of the new authors. Definitely a quick and easy read for the mature audience.