In The Mortons, wife-and-husband team Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld create a complex, riveting character in 20-year-old narrator Jessica Morton, who's been raised by her family to steal and murder without detection.
Each Morton child must name and care for a rabbit--and then kill it. Jessica killed hers when she was eight. Their family motto is "fides sine cura" (loyalty without care); they demand devotion, but detachment is their aim. All the Mortons have attended Helshire, an Ivy League-style school, where the Mortons and three other legacy families hone skills such as accounting (for money laundering), history, and "No Drama" (the art of blending into crowds).
In the opening scene, Jessica is in the midst of "culling" her sophomore cousin Peter, who adores her. Other than her rabbit, this is Jessica's first kill. The authors hone Jessica's thoughts to tuning-fork perfection. She models clarity of purpose--cold, sharp, and strong of body and constitution. Whatever she sets her mind to doing, she does. Nothing affects her. That is, until her family assigns her to work in her uncle's New York City gallery to seduce artist Hiromi Kennedy. Jessica gets pulled into a dark tangle of personalities and desires more complicated than any she's known before. Her laser-focused concentration falters, clouded by possible feelings for her "prey," and she feels like she's cracking open.
Larbalestier and Westerfeld render the constellation of family members with sensational details. The plot unfolds at breakneck speed as the authors immerse readers in a world of "loyalty without care," so it's all the more impressive how worthy of care Jessica turns out to be. --Jennifer M. Brown