The Birthday Murderer: A Mystery

by Jay Bennett

A psychological thriller by a master mystery writer offers a portrait of a tortured young man searching for his past in order that he may live to see the future

150 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1977

About the author

Jay Bennett (born in New York City, December 24, 1912, died June 27, 2009 in Cherry Hill, NJ) was an American author and two-time winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Bennett won the Edgar for Best Juvenile novel in 1974 and 1975, for The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press) and The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press), respectively. He was the first author to win an Edgar in consecutive years. A third book, The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts), was nominated in 1987. Bennett is best known among English teachers and young adults for these and other juvenile mysteries, like Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Scholastic).

Reviews

[Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would recommend this book because it is a very interesting book. This book is about a kid named Shan that receives a message saying he is a birthday murderer. He ends up getting beaten by his mothers "friend". Then him and his friend Donna ends up together as a couple. The ending of this book is very mysterious because it ends with him and Donna kissing on the bench.

[Derek · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book The Birthday Murderer was not a good book to me. I would not recommend this book to anyone. It is a book that has a decent beginning, but in the end it gets really boring. The beginning was interesting because it explained what the book was going to be about. It was interesting because it was more of a mystery in the beginning because you did not know who the murderer was until he found the note that was placed on his bed on the night of his birthday. I thought the end was boring because all he was attempting to do was find out who wrote the note. I thought it wasn't exciting because eventually he found out it was himself who wrote it. He spent most of the book trying to figure out who wrote it. I thought it would be someone random or one of his friend, but he wrote it when he was little, and lit his cousins house on fire on his cousins seventeenth birthday, and it killed him. I gave it a one star for its good beginning.

[Dominique A]

This book was a mind-teaser. It wasn't hard to follow but there were some parts I had to read a couple of times. But overall it was a really good book. It was one of those books that you have to put thought into (in a good way).