"Kathleen, Please Come Home" is a sympathetic portrait of a 15-year-old from a happy middle-class home who runs away. Mr. O'Dell … can weave a suspenseful tale, and he has done so in his latest novel, which is in large part a young woman's diary.

Romantic and impressionable, Kathleen Winters falls in love with a 17-year-old Mexican illegal alien who, at first sight, reminded her of Don Quixote. Caught with fake identification papers, Ramón is deported. When he tries to return to the United States, he is killed at the border. Who betrayed him to the authorities in the first place? Discovering that it was her mother, Kathleen heads for Tijuana with her friend Sybil.

There is a moving section in the book in which Kathleen's mother, Sara, writes down in her diary her reactions after she realizes that her duaghter has run away. She finds it difficult...