Dealing with the cheer squad and squads of killers, horndog teachers, and shady oligarchs, Blind Trust offers a wild ride of high-stakes and twists and turns, the thrills and intrigue stretching from the tech world to Washington D.C., but always juxtaposed against the everyday frustrations of high school. Tess is constantly thrown into precarious situations as she elects to crack the case herself, but she’s surrounded by a colorful cast, from her seeing-eye assistant—whose attempt to score a kiss upsets Tess almost as much as the botched hit—to an eccentric top-notch hacker. Sherer ramps up the tension by making it clear Tess can’t trust many people now that she stands as sole heir to her father's fortune from his company, MondoHard.

The sharp-tongued protagonist is the star, continually trying to work out who is trying to take her life and who merely wants to ruin it in that high-school way, but well-rounded and diverse characters and narrators flesh out the story, often amusingly. Fans of action-packed thrillers with an ensemble cast—and thoughtful handling of physical and mental differences—and jolts of lively humor will race through this entry to its satisfying conclusion.

Takeaway: Fast-paced thriller pitting a blind high school senior against surprising enemies.

Comparable Titles: T.R. Ragan's Abducted, Stephanie Plum's One for the Money.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A