Status Updates From Night of the Mallrats: A Novel

It was almost noon and the detective was already down in the mouth. Interviews with Miss Packard's friends were going nowhere. A search of the magic shop was a bust. Mr. Gambhir, the mall janitor who found Mr. Holt's body, couldn't even be interviewed; the guy trashed his house so badly he had to be committed to a psych ward in South Pitch.

So far this book is a lot more compelling than I thought it would be.

"Isn't that what a mall was to a nineties teen? You went to the mall not to spend all your babysitting money but to be seen. You wore a nice outfit, makeup, cream rinse in your hair. Maybe you'll find a boyfriend? A mall is a teenager's ecosystem, their own city where parents aren't watching, the next level of freedom after getting too old for a bicycle."