Book Review: E.L. Konigsburg's Silent to the Bone

Thirteen year old Conner's best friend Branwell is in a correctional facility because everyone thinks Branwell injured his baby half-sister. The situation is more tangled than it seems, with fractured parental relationships and a seductive au pair. The only one who knows what really happened is Branwell, but he's not talking... It's as if he can't. Inspired by the story of the paralyzed author who communicated by blinking, Conner tries to help Branwell tell him the truth and sets off to solve the mystery.

I've read a couple of E.L. Konigsburg's books before, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (excellent, one of my favorites since I read it in elementary school) and The View From Saturday (also very good; I read it for a children's literature class in college). This one was also excellently written, and the characters, even minor ones (with the exception of the villain) were well-rounded. They didn't quite feel like real people, except for Connor and Branwell, probably because Connor is our narrator and he and Branwell are the people he knows the best. Silent to the Bone was a bit of a page-turner, but the villain was rather obvious and felt somewhat flat. I pretty much knew how it was going to end, but Konigsburg at least doesn't let you know quite how she's going to get there. A good read, and recommended. I'd give it a B+, perhaps.
p.s. This is random, but I find this sort of thing important: the cover was just perfect for this book.