Lois Duncan began writing as a child, selling her first short story at age thirteen. From her first novel, Debutante Hill, she has gone on to write many different kinds of books, over thirty in all for young readers. Most noted for her predominant characters and plot, Duncan's style is simple and intriguing. Her plots involve normal teen-agers in normal surroundings suddenly caught up in something totally unexpected, from the weird to the terrifying. Her subject matter covers anything and everything happening in the modern teen-ager's life, including drugs, sex, divorce, crime, identity crises, and peer pressure. Some of her characters are convincingly evil, depicted in chilling clarity by narration with a wealth of detail. The danger her teen-agers face develops quite believably, giving her stories a shade of reality making them simultaneously frightening and appealing. Even in the instances when Duncan uses the...