Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best mystery
Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year

“Like its heroine, this contemporary mystery is compelling, offbeat, and fearless.” —The Horn Book

“A sensitive, suspenseful mystery that deftly navigates the uncertainty of mental illness.” —Kirkus Reviews

Footer Davis is on the case when two kids go missing after a fire in this humorously honest novel that is full of Southern style.

Here are some things that are true about Footer Davis:
1. She has a BB gun named Louise.
2. Walruses freak her out.
3. Her mom has bipolar disorder.

But she wants you to know that it’s not that big a deal. She’s just Mom, and usually she’s fine except sometimes when she doesn’t take her pills. But right now what’s most important to Footer is what happened to those kids at the Abrams farm. See, there was a fire there a few nights ago, and those kids haven’t been seen since. Pretty sure they got burned up. What Footer and Peavine—that’s her best friend—want to know is who started the fire?

This middle grade mystery is funny, honest, populated with interesting characters, and Southern to the core. Kirkus Reviews called it “a sensitive, suspenseful mystery that deftly navigates the uncertainty of mental illness.”

Eleven-year-old Footer and her friends investigate when a nearby farm is burned, the farmer murdered, and his children disappear, but as they follow the clues, Footer starts having flashbacks and wonders if she is going crazy like her mother, who is back in a mental institution near their Mississippi home.