If you passed Haley Taylor Schlitz on the streets of St. Paul and saw her hanging out with friends, on the hunt for a sweet treat or walking her miniature dachshund, Liora, she’d look a lot like an average 20-something.

Taylor Schlitz is, however, one of the youngest women and the youngest African American to graduate from law school in the U.S., and from 9 to 5 she’s at her desk, suited up and working on case after case in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.

Taylor Schlitz was hired as an assistant attorney general, assigned to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, in June 2024, according to the office.

Saying yes to the job meant leaving Fort Worth, Texas, and her family, which was challenging. But it helped that her dad was a big Bud Grant and Minnesota Vikings fan, plus he worked for Delta, so they flew several times to training camp in Mankato and games at the Metrodome.

The opportunity to serve the state was a welcome adventure, she said, and now, at 23 years old, she is the youngest assistant attorney general in the state.

“I just knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work for such an attorney like Attorney General (Keith) Ellison … such a role model and a leader, especially in the legal field,” Taylor Schlitz said.

She also had been looking for opportunities to practice outside of Texas.

“I got the job and, being up here for a year, I can confidently say that this truly is the home I was looking for,” she said.

A lifetime of achievements at 23

As a young adult, Taylor Schlitz’s list of accomplishments surpasses what many achieve over a lifetime. At age 13, she enrolled in undergraduate school. At 16, she completed her studies at Texas Woman’s University and was then accepted into nine law schools.

“That was very validating to get acceptance to nine law schools,” Taylor Schlitz said. “I took pictures of all the acceptance letters and celebrated each one that came in. It was a very proud moment for me and my family.”

In 2019, she and her mother, Dr. Myiesha Taylor, co-wrote the book “The Homeschool Alternative: Incorporating a Homeschool Mindset for the Benefit of Black Children in America,” and she is currently working on her first solo nonfiction book on Gen Z and politics.

Her opinion pieces have been published in media such as the Black Wall Street Times, Insight News and the Minnesota Star Tribune. She was featured in a publication by Beyoncé during Black History Month in 2020, and served as a delegate for then-Vice President Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention during the same year.

She currently serves on the board of directors for the Greater Twin Cities United Way, is board chair of the CapitolRiver Council in St. Paul, is a Josie R. Johnson Leadership Academy fellow and the list goes on.

“Haley has a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm, combined with a kind of pragmatism about what’s possible,” CapitolRiver Council executive director Jon Fure said. “One word that people most commonly use when they meet her is that she’s brilliant.”

Taylor Schlitz is the youngest board chair the council has ever had, Fure said, which he said speaks to her leadership qualities.

A gifted child

Taylor Schlitz credits much of her academic accolades to her parents’ decision to pull her out of the Texas public elementary school system.

“It’s just amazing what children can do when we allow them to explore their full abilities and their full potential,” her father, William Schlitz, said.

Schlitz said his daughter showed early signs of advanced intelligence. She’d finish assignments at an impressive speed, was consistently getting straight-A grades and could teach herself entire concepts like geometry.

But Schlitz couldn’t ignore that his biracial, Black daughter seemed to be mistreated in comparison to other students.

He remembers a 10-year-old Haley coming home from school and telling him and his wife how her elementary class reenacted the Civil War. The class split in two for North and South and Haley, the only Black student in the class, was cast as “the mullato slave girl,” Schlitz said.

“Her white classmates turned to her and said, in a mean way, ‘You know, if we were alive back then, I’d own you,’” Schlitz said. “We pulled her out at that moment, because it was clear to us.”

When Taylor Schlitz thinks back to that moment, she thinks about how disruptive it was to her learning, she said. An experience like that can break a student’s ability to engage and comprehend the curriculum, she said.

“I certainly was not learning; much less if I had stayed there longer,” Taylor Schlitz said. “We talk about mental health affecting youth, and that’s where it starts. It doesn’t start in eighth and ninth grade, it starts very young.”

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Following that experience, her grades began to drop. She lost her focus, and when she did engage, she was often teased by other classmates for being nerdy, she said. Her parents decided then to homeschool her.

“It was obvious that Texas was becoming a more and more hostile place to Black children in the education system,” her father said.

As a hybrid homeschooled child, Haley would alternate between completing online courses and taking in-person classes at a college preparatory school in Texas.

“I was able to graduate early and go to college,” Taylor Schlitz said. “But deeper than that, I grew as a student and as a person. I knew how I studied best, I managed stress, I changed my measurements of failure and success, and my time-management skills were so incredibly sharp by the time I got to college.”

She’s not the only one, either; her two younger siblings followed in her footsteps, graduating from college at 15 and 16. Her now 17-year-old sister, Hana, is working to get her master’s, and her 19-year-old brother, Ian, is pursuing a doctoral program, which he’ll finish in a year.

From education to justice

Initially, after graduating from college, Taylor Schlitz wanted to be a doctor like her mother, an emergency medicine physician. Her experience with early higher education, however, swayed her in a different direction.

She was fortunate enough to have parents who recognized her academic abilities at a young age, she said, and recognized that not all children are given the same opportunities.

Haley Taylor Schlitz in the Minnesota Department of Public Safety office in St. Paul. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“So, how many students are we overlooking?” Taylor Schlitz said. “How many future leaders, doctors or lawyers are we … not doing the service we could be because they just don’t have that same knowledge or opportunity?”

The year after graduating from law school, Taylor Schlitz taught a fifth-grade history class for two years in Texas to gain hands-on experience in the classroom that would benefit her long-term aspirations of working in education policy.

“I was right and the experience was invaluable, for me to have my boots on the ground and for me to have my own personal experiences in the classroom with the teachers every single day,” Taylor Schlitz said.

Serving Minnesota

In her role as assistant attorney general, Taylor Schlitz represents the state and works with law enforcement, handling cases primarily related to road safety, driver and vehicle services, and drinking and driving.

Attorneys like her, working in different divisions, come to work in the office to “serve the people of Minnesota and the state to ensure Minnesota is greater, safer and continues to grow,” she said.

Her work has offered her a unique opportunity to learn about the Twin Cities landscape, roads and law enforcement. A fast-paced work environment, she said, she finds exciting.

“I went into the legal field and wanted to be an attorney to advocate for equity and justice, and that includes in the public safety realm,” Taylor Schlitz said.

As a Black woman working in public safety, she understands the hesitancy many people of color have when encountering law enforcement, she said, which is why it’s even more important that she is a part of increasing cultural diversity in her field, she said.

“Bring a seat to the table, as they say, otherwise you’re on the menu, right?” Taylor Schlitz said.

Taylor Schlitz said her Black heritage has shaped everything in her life, and it is through that lens that she advocates for justice and equity. Her grandfather, Dwight Taylor, was the second person killed during the Rodney King civil unrest in Los Angeles in 1992. She never got the chance to know him, she said, but his legacy is carried in her family.

“The conversations that are very, very unfortunately common in the Black community are of, ‘just make it home,’ when you get pulled over, ‘just make it home,’ when you get stopped, ‘just make it home,’” Taylor Schlitz said. “Not only did we have that conversation, but it also had that vein of ‘because Grandpa didn’t make it home.’”

She’s able to apply what she learns in her own life and help others do the same, she said. For example, it’s important that people of color know their rights, use their right to remain silent and right to an attorney before speaking to officers if they feel uncomfortable, she said. People should also cooperate with law enforcement orders, she said, because, as she was taught by her family, the number one priority is “making it home safely.”

“I’m so proud of her,” William Schlitz said. “She seems every day to wake up with the passion to be better and make an impact on the world.”

More to come in Minnesota

Living and working in Minnesota is a far cry from Texas, Taylor Schlitz said. At work, and in St. Paul, she feels much more welcomed and appreciated, she said, because her values are mirrored in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and in many of the state’s citizens.

“I was also desperate and hungry for that home, and that’s what St. Paul has really become for me,” Taylor Schlitz said. “A place where I’m not questioned, a place where my simple existence as a Black woman and my right to be is not being challenged every single day.”

According to Greater Twin Cities United Way President John Wilgers, Taylor Schlitz has great maturity and intelligence, but something equally valuable as a board member is her positive, infectious energy and the ability to represent the needs of Gen Z.

“She brings a solutions perspective … and I think the work that she does probably also provides her with a deep connection to the community,” Wilgers said.

She credits her mother, the most influential Black female role model in her life, for helping her become the person she is today; for giving her the tools to navigate injustice and believe in herself, she said.

Her mentors, her friends, her attorney team and neighbors have helped create a village, or “forest,” that pushes her to achieve greatness, she said. Most of all, both of her parents continue to be a source of inspiration, comfort and support in her life.

“I always encourage people when they ask, ‘How did you get through the hard times?’ … I always tell people to fall back on their village, on their forests, as I like to refer to it, with all the great trees that are in it, with their pearls of wisdom, with their experiences; they, too, have been criticized,” Taylor Schlitz said.

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Taylor Schlitz will continue to grow in her current position as assistant attorney general, defines herself as a lifelong learner and would like to one day start her own law firm.

“Running for office is definitely on the radar, maybe in the near future, maybe in the far future,” Taylor Schlitz said. “Whatever doors open and stars align.”

When Taylor Schlitz isn’t working on her book, reviewing cases or attending board meetings, she likes to read romance and fantasy novels, paint, play first-person shooter video games, do mind puzzles with friends and attend events at Rice Park in downtown St. Paul.

As Taylor Schlitz has begun to find home in Minnesota, she said she is thrilled to be able to pour herself into the St. Paul community through her various leadership roles.

“St. Paul and Minnesota always hold a place in my heart because it’s the state that gave me a chance,” Taylor Schlitz said.

This story was created in partnership with Power 104.7. To listen to the radio version, visit power1047.fm and click “listen live.”

PATRICIA LOCKWOOD: Bestselling author of “Will There Ever Be Another You” discusses her writing career with Talking Volumes host Kerri Miller. $35. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Fitzgerald Theater, 10 E. Exchange St., St. Paul. Ticket information: mprevents.org.

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DEVONEY LOOSER: Presents his tribute to writer Jane Austen in “Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane,” in conversation with Andrea Kaston Tange.  7 p.m. Wednesday, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.

J.H. MARKERT: Kentucky-based true-crime novelist and screenwriter hosts a meet-and-greet in celebration of his new book, “The Spider to the Fly.” Noon-2 p.m. Saturday, Once Upon a Crime, 604 W. 26th St., Mpls.

POETRY AND PINTS: Part of the Cracked Walnut literary festival, this program offers words and brews. 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sisyphus Brewing, 712 Ontario Ave., Mpls.

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Each year, as they did last month, state officials release scores from the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment tests. But why are the tests important, how are they used and what should parents know about them?

Test results from the 2024-2025 school year showed Minnesota student proficiency levels in math and reading stayed relatively flat from the previous year. Statewide, 45.2% of students met or exceeded standards in math and 49.6% met or exceeded standards in reading, both slightly down from the previous year.

Science test results will be released in the fall, after the first year of instruction following newly revised academic standards.

In St. Paul Public Schools, students’ overall scores for the past school year improved slightly from those of the previous year. About 26.6% of students scored proficient in math and 34.8% were proficient in reading. Last year, about 26% scored proficient in math while 34.1% were proficient in reading.

What are the MCAs?

The MCAs are standards-based assessments. That means they evaluate what students have learned by the end of a grade. But they are one data point that should be considered along with other measures of student learning, according to state education officials. The Minnesota Test of Academic Skills is an alternate assessment given to students with cognitive disabilities.

Students take the reading and math MCA tests in third through eighth grades and once in high school. Science testing is done in fifth and eighth grades and once in high school.

The results are used as a “system check” at the school, district or student group level.

The MCAs gather information about how state academic standards are being taught. Schools can then use the information to improve curriculum and student support. They can also be used by teachers to see where students did well so they can reinforce the ways they teach those skills.

What can parents learn from the MCAs?

MCA scores help officials know if their school is making progress and help the state identify which schools need support, said Michael Rodriguez, dean of the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development. Rodriguez is a psychometrician, meaning he looks at the technical side of test development and scoring.

But, while MCA scores provide progress information to schools, Rodriguez said he doesn’t think individual scores should be the information parents receive when it comes to how their student is doing. Instead, Rodriguez said, student performance levels — Does Not Meet, Meets, Partially Meets, or Exceeds standards — are much more informative.

“The MCAs are really about how the schools are doing,” Rodriguez said. “And it’s really important for us if we’re going to continue to improve and support our schools and identify the schools that need those comprehensive supports.”

On an individual student level, MCAs are not designed to provide the same detailed information about student learning that classroom assessments and other evidence of learning provide, state officials said.

“Parents use the results to help identify where a student is doing well and where they might need more support,” according to the state Education Department. “The performance level (Does Not Meet, Meets, Partially Meets, or Exceeds) can indicate progress in a subject over time, but MCA/MTAS scores cannot be compared across years. Since there is no single assessment that can provide the full perspective of what a student has learned, parents should use additional measures for a more complete picture.”

What’s happening to improve student achievement?

There are several initiatives in Minnesota designed to boost achievement. They include the READ Act, signed into law in 2023, and teacher recruitment and retention programs.

The READ Act aims to have all children reading at or above grade level every year and to support multilingual learners and students receiving special-education services in their individualized reading goals.

In St. Paul Public Schools, there are more than 50 teachers involved in reading intervention across the district. They are sent to specific schools based on identified need, according to Andrew Collins, SPPS executive chief of schools.

“It’s based upon data. What does need look like, and how are we supporting need?” Collins said. “And then how are we also providing some other tailored opportunities for some of our administrators that might be in buildings in which their data looks a little bit different as compared to their colleagues? So it’s supporting everyone and also trying to differentiate support.”

At Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy, which had some of the highest MCA proficiency rates in the district this year, Principal Bobbie Johnson said data is an important part of her school’s success from teachers’ first day.

“I give them the data, not just MCA, also ELL ACCESS data, school climate data,” Johnson said. “We look through the data. We decide as a whole group, what’s moving forward this year, what’s our focus? So I think data-driven, very passionate, very skillful staff (are key). And then the students, the family.”

Opt-outs

Because students are not required to take the MCAs, some families choose to opt out.

At St. Paul Public Schools, 90% of eligible students tested in math and 92% tested in reading. On an individual school level, opt-out rates can be significantly higher and tend to go up as students get older. At SPPS schools, 2024-2025 opt-out rates ranged anywhere from 0% to 40.1% or 100%.

At EdAllies, a nonprofit advocate for historically underserved students, officials tend to focus on fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math student achievement as benchmarks.

“High school is a tough data set to look at, just because there’s just so many opt-outs that even one student not meeting proficiency can skew the data,” said Josh Crosson, executive director of EdAllies.

As an example, Crosson points out a school with a high proficiency rate for a group of students, but less than 50 students in that group.

The more students who participate in the MCAs, the more information districts and schools have to make decisions about how to use money, staff and resources, according to the Education Department.

It’s always the parent’s right to decide to opt out, Rodriguez said, but he said he encourages parents to motivate their kids to do their best on the test “because that’s how we learn about how our schools are doing.”

“When you factor in some of the opt-out rates, it makes comparisons even more difficult because I think people want to compare School A to School B,” Collins said. “And there’s so much more data and so many more layers of data that you really need to understand and look at to get an accurate comparison.”

Looking at the data

MCA results are looked at in different ways – from grade and performance level to student groups like race and age or whether they’re receiving special-education services or are learning English.

“You can look at the average, but the average doesn’t really tell you much about the variation in lots of schools,” Rodriguez said. “There are kids that get the highest scores, but there may be lots of kids that get low scores, and perhaps because they’re learning English, or they’re new to the state, or they move every year. … They are not simply a direct result of what the school is doing. It is all the prior experiences, the prior opportunities and the resources available.”

Schools with lower MCA scores tend to be the most segregated, with the least amount of resources and least-experienced teachers, Rodriguez said. Schools with the highest proportion of English learners also tend to have lower scores, he said.

“But you know what? Those English learners, their reading scores grow faster than anybody else. But of course, they have a lot to grow. So as they’re learning English, their performance is increasing faster than anybody,” Rodriguez said.

It’s not really useful to compare schools based on test scores to decide which one is best because every school has a different composition of students, which can create different challenges, he said.

According to Rodriguez’s research on student achievement, 80% of differences in student performance happens within schools rather than between them. For that reason, breaking down data within a school can help give a better idea of how students are doing, rather than looking at aggregate data, Crosson said.

What can parents do?

Rodriguez said parents should ask their students how their experience was with the test. It’s important for parents to talk with their children about how they’re experiencing school. He asks his own child if he learned anything while taking the exam, what he thought of it and what he thought was interesting or difficult.

Parents’ relationships with teachers can be vital, according to education officials. Having conversations with them also can be an opportunity for parents to ask teachers what other resources and opportunities their child could be receiving, Crosson said.

“So often, kids of color and kids with disabilities who do well on the MCAs aren’t also offered opportunities to advance or excel in high school and then access college-level materials,” Crosson said. “So I think it should pique interest and a lot of questions around parents of both, ‘Why is my child not doing as well as they could be based on the state standards?’ or ‘Can my child have more opportunity?’”

Parents should also consider other aspects of their student’s school experience, such as specialties, opportunities and community, Rodriguez said.

“Test scores are part of the picture, but kind of a small part,” Rodriguez said.

To look up a school and see details on its assessments, staffing and students, attendance rates and more, visit the Minnesota Report Card at rc.education.mn.gov/#mySchool/p–3.

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What a nice coincidence. Three St. Paul authors (and one from West St. Paul) are launching their new books this week. Enjoy their eclectic fiction, including short stories, thrillers, and a novel set in the milieu of fonts and typefaces.

(Courtesy of the author)

Let’s begin with a novel a decade in the making.

Rebecca Kanner came home from Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in New Orleans this month happy that her debut psychological thriller, “Last One Seen,” earned her a place on a panel about writing in this genre that is new to her.

“It was fun to go to Bouchercon and fun to return,” Kanner said during a phone conversation from the home she shares in Highland Park with her father, Michael.

Kanner’s previous novels — “Esther,” about Queen Esther who saved her Jewish people, and “Sinners and the Sea,” a story of Noah’s wife — earned critics’ praise. Jumping from the Old Testament to thriller territory was a gamble that has paid off for this writer who put some of her life into her new novel.

“It’s hard to genre jump,” she says. “Publishers are conservative. They want you to say the same things over and over. A thriller felt so natural to me, being in an MFA program and having a mood disorder. The novel ended up taking me 10 years off and on, doing projects in between. It felt like I had all this material and when I thought about how to organize it, the mystery format seemed to work.”

In “Last One Seen,” we meet Hannah, who’s just joined the MFA writing program at Washington University in St. Louis, where she makes friends among the tight-knit group of post-grads. But Hannah is not well mentally.

“Hannah struggles,” Kanner explains. “She has bipolar disorder. People see that as something negative. But for an artist it is kind of powerful. Should she medicate away all this energy? Can she walk a line with meds that keeps the good stuff from bipolar and tap down the bad stuff? Lots of artists struggle with bipolar disorder, and (the energy) feels like magic.”

The story, which explores the line between perception and reality, begins with Hannah being driven north of the Twin Cities. She doesn’t know how she got in the car or where she is going. She only knows that her friend Justine was killed and that there are three suspects, one of them herself. Hannah is an unreliable narrator not only because she has mental issues but also because she skips her meds and drinks until she passes out. So she has big gaps in her memory. At first, she hated Justine for being sophisticated and glamorous, as well as taking the last fellowship with a stipend. But Justine wanted to be Hannah’s best friend. Is she? Why does sexy Eli, who swears he loves Hannah, ply her with drinks? Is Hannah being psychologically manipulated? Who can she trust?

Rebecca Kanner (Courtesy of the author)

The novel’s characters, Kanner says, are a composite of people she encountered during her MFA years at Washington University, where she learned to love writing. Included in the plot is life in academia – competition for funding and awards, vulnerability of students when their writing is workshopped, discussions about “truth” in fiction and nonfiction.

Kanner’s road to writing “Last One Seen” was winding and challenging.

“I was writing a novel about two women who were slaves in Egypt,” she recalls. “Then my apartment was broken into, my laptop was stolen, and it kind of took the wind out of my sails. I decided to switch to mysteries, which I’ve always liked because they represent true escapism. Then I went to a craft talk at the Loft by Richard Thompson (a Minnesota Book Award winner). And another woman and I studied mystery writing with him. When I showed him this really long novel I’d been working on since grad school, he said at each of our meetings, ‘I don’t want to see this again.’ Thank God he did or I’d still be working on it.”

When Kanner isn’t writing, she spends time with John Weber, whom she calls “my man John, so funny, so wonderful, the love of my life.” Weber runs Black Spur Labradors, a small breeding operation in Prior Lake, where Kanner recently watched the birth of eight pups with a surprise ninth coming later. She had fun photographing and playing with the fat little fur balls before they went to forever homes.

Now Kanner is looking forward to bringing “Last One Seen” to readers. She will launch her thriller (Crooked Lane Books, $29.99) at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Once Upon a Crime, 604 W. 26th St., Mpls.

“Escapes and Other Stories”: by Susan Koefod (Calumet Editions, $16.99)

At the end of the first year, though she tried hard to ignore it, the resentment began to build for his staying alive. He had never said an unkind thing to her, but his cruel going on tortured her and fed her guilt. Eventually, she accepted that she would have to kill him to be able to go on herself.” — from “Escapes and Other Stories”

Susan Koefod (Courtesy of Calumet Editions)

Everyone in the 15 stories that make up Koefod’s inventive new collection are trying to escape or have done so, from a woman who escaped through death and lies thinking in her coffin, to a mother whose identity is lost in mental hospital records.

Two of the stories are set in St. Paul. In one, sort of a fantasy, a beautiful woman comes out of an ice sculpture carved during the St. Paul Winter Carnival. In another, a mysterious guest turns up at the 1922 Bad Luck Ball hosted by Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald at the University Club.

Koefod, author of three crime novels featuring Arno Thorson, introduces the alcoholic detective in two stories: one about him defending his mother’s sad old house from kid vandals, the other about a crime at the Minnesota State Fair involving a boy who loves his big bull.

(Courtesy of Calumet Editions)

There’s a couple who play a game involving elephant jokes, a sort-of fairytale about a family and their bizarre house, a perfect crime involving a garage door opener, and another about a little girl who lays her head next to her Grandpa lying in his coffin so she can see the world through his glasses. There’s also a motorcycle-riding nun who believes she met Jesus in a carnival funhouse mirror, leading to drastic happenings in her convent.

A resident of West St. Paul, Koefod most recently published “Albert Park: A Memoir in Lies,” about a baby found at the tiny park at Bernard Street and Dodd Road. Her first Thorson novel, “Washed Up” (2011), was described by Library Journal  as “a smashing debut with astute observations and gorgeous prose.”  She is the winner of a $25,000 Loft McKnight Artist Fellowship.

Koefod will launch her book at 3 p.m. Saturday at Amore Coffee, 879 S. Smith Ave., West St. Paul.

“Seven for a Secret”: by Mary E. Roach (Hyperion, $18.99)

The dead of this forest have not rested, not since they were dragged to their grave screaming and begging. And now the dead have come for those who were silent when they should have spoken, for those who stood still when they have gone looking. — from “Seven for a Secret”

Mary E. Roach (Courtesy of the author)

It was called Sister’s Place, in the town of Avan Island, Md., a group home for girls that nobody wanted. Ten-year-old Nev, the youngest, was there when seven of her sisters disappeared. She was also taken, the only one who got away from the monster with a bloody saw in a shack in the woods.

So begins Roach’s second, beautifully written young adult thriller about female rage, grief, revenge, the power of men to make a little girl feel small, and sense of family among residents of Sister’s Place.

Nev, who’s now 17 and emancipated, returns to Avan Island. It’s been five years since she left, years spent learning martial arts and becoming a sharp-edged woman who wants to find out why the town’s leading men are being killed, including the police chief, the pastor who “counseled” the girls and others who served on the board of Sister’s Place. These were the men who wouldn’t listen to Nev and her sisters when they tried to talk about the disappearance of the other girls. The men dismissed them, saying the disappeared were runaways and “girls like that” were liars.

At the island, Nev meets gentle, smart Roan, one of the oldest girls who lived at Sister’s Place. Roan, who also wants answers about their vanished sisters, is a reporter for a small newspaper investigating the deaths of the prominent men, soon linked.to the girls who vanished. Nev tags along, her anger so vast it sometimes overwhelms her. There are also three other women from the group home who are in the medical field and have access to the men’s corpses. They learn there are messages cut into the bodies that make sense when Nev discovers an old book of rhymes in the abandoned Sister’s Place house that begins “One for sorrow” and ends with “seven for…”

(Courtesy of the author)

The story is told in the voices of Nev and the ghosts of her dead sisters. They know who the killer is, and this time they will make the authorities listen. It’s nearly impossible to convey the sense of horror underneath the plot. That’s what makes this such a perfect thriller. Although the Sister’s Place girls who disappeared met horrific deaths, Roach conveys this with innuendo and Nev’s dark memories without going into specifics.

As Nev, Roan and the other Sister’s Place survivors get closer to the truth, they are in more danger from whoever wants the secrets of the dead kept hidden in the forest. If they stay together, can they end the deaths?

Roach, a former teacher whose previous YA novel is “Better Left Buried,” was set to launch her new book this week at Red Balloon Bookshop on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, but the event has been postponed. Watch for updates at redballoonbookshop.com/events. She will read Oct 18 at Once Upon a Crime mystery bookshop, 604 W. 26th St., Mpls., and Oct. 24 at Barnes & Noble in Edina.

“Cyan Magenta Yellow Black”: by Kevin Fenton (Black Lawrence Press, $25.95)

Agencies are rivers of information: notes, creative briefs, white boards filled with the aftermath of brainstorms, sketches, concept boards, pink while-you-were-out slips, drafts, drafts flagged with post-its and scrawled with marginalia, estimates, time-lines, proposals, slide shows, color separations which magically constitute the world from cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, proofs, samples. Agencies are a swirl of things becoming better things. — from “Cyan Magenta Yellow Black”

When two critics, including former University of Minnesota professor Charles Baxter, describe a book as “beautiful,” you know it’s worth reading. Fenton has given us an uplifting, very St. Paul story in his third book.

Kevin Fenton Courtesy of the author)

The main character is Duane, living in St. Paul in 1993, just before computers caught on. He’s in advertising, specializing in graphic design, so throughout the story we get his thoughts on typefaces, how print ads work and how the business is changing to a more in-your-face punk style. And always he ponders use of colors all around him, from cereal boxes to magazines. He can’t help thinking about words turned into graphics, as when he visualizes “going to the Clinique counter at Dayton’s and buying glossy and luxurious shaving cream in tubes of restrained gray with sans serif type.”

When the story begins, Duane is waiting out a yearlong noncompete clause after his advertising firm’s partners ask him to leave because he refuses to bow to the wishes of clients. He is lonely, spending time in Grand Avenue coffee shops and businesses that no longer exist, including the Bibelot Shop and Table of Contents, a restaurant that shared space with David Unowsky’s Hungry Mind bookstore.

(Courtesy of the author)

Duane’s only consistent activity is attending group therapy, where he makes friends with Emily, a spritzer at the perfume counter of St. Paul Dayton’s, and Porter, a lonely and guilt-filled Vietnam vet who delivers pizza, the only job at which he never killed anyone. When Duane, Emily and Porter get together, they feel less lonely. Emmy, who keeps her social distance, decides to have her first-ever party, and Porter falls in love with a dog. Duane, whose girlfriend left him when he had a job because he was so self-centered, reconnects with her, and they resume their tender relationship. These are good people struggling to find their best lives. The reader roots for them as they look to happy futures.

Fenton is the author of “Merit Badges,” winner of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs prize for the novel, and “Leaving Rollingstone,” described by award-winning St. Paul writer Patricia Hampl as “the most important memoir to come out of the Midwest (or anywhere) in years.” His essays on advertising design have appeared in publications in the U.S. and Europe. A graduate of the University of Minnesota law school and MFA writing program, Fenton will introduce his new book at 6 p.m. Thursday at Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.

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