Blacklisted by Gena Showalter

A great sequel to Red Handed (Teen Alien Huntress) (see my review here)...

Blacklisted is an exciting and gritty follow-up to Red Handed. Most of the main characters from Red Handed make a peripheral appearance; the focus here is on Erik, who has apparently turned from A.I.R. agent into an illicit dealer in Onadyn, a drug that is used by oxygen-intolerant aliens to live -- and by human drug addicts.

Ms Showalter does an excellent job in several areas:

- in showing how 1 decision can change a person's life in major ways. This applies to both Erik and Camille, albeit they each made separate, unrelated, life-altering decisions at different times that have led them into a somewhat harrowing adventure together.

- in making believable the reasons behind the decisons Erik and Camille made

- in describing the lengths to which female teens might go to in order to pursue those they're infatuated with

- in the pacing and suspense of the story

- in reintroducing some of the main characters we saw in Red Handed

- in showing that "the authorities" can be just as brutal, unsympathetic, and unjust as the criminals they pursue


I did enjoy this book and would recommend it. However, the reason I gave only 4 stars for Blacklisted was due to a combination of things, almost all tied to loose ends:

** POSSIBLE MILD SPOILERS BELOW **

- It's difficult to believe that having known and trained with Erik for so long that no one at A.I.R. -- including his former peers and instructors -- seems to question why or delve deeper into the reasons Erik has done what they think he's done. I don't really count the negligible protest by Cara, Erik's former flame because it was only a brief protest. The fact that she may have second-guessed herself is implied, but even so she's still the only person who appears to have at least thought about whether her assumptions about Erik might have been wrong.

- As a corollary to the above point, A.I.R. comprises several aliens among its staff and students. It's been mentioned in both Red Handed and Blacklisted that there are aliens who are telepathic to the extent that they can mind read humans. Since A.I.R. is willing to resort to violence in their interrogations, why weren't they willing to find a mind-reading alien who could probe their thoughts? (Clearly, it had nothing to do with the rights of Erik or Camille, and of course, this would likely have shortened the story considerably, but at least a reason why this option wasn't explored by A.I.R. should have been explained.)

- Erik mentions to Camille at one point that her actions hadn't made much of a difference to what occurred at the club ("the Ship") because his past had caught up to him. That wasn't really explained, although one might attribute it to the fact that his former peers have shown up at the club and indicated they're watching him.

- Camille and her friend Shanel have lied to their parents about their whereabouts and it's clear later that they have no money, yet they're able to order drinks at the club's bar. The inference seems to be that the drinks are charged somehow... which would likely show up in an invoice/statement somewhere their parents would end up seeing.

- After a whirlwind sequence of events, the ending is very abrupt. After all the things the A.I.R. agents have put Erik and Camille through, the denouement is without fanfare, Camille's parents are suddenly in agreement with Camille's actions, and that's it. The issue of Silver is left hanging as well.

** POSSIBLE MILD SPOILERS ABOVE **

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