Abdi Mahad and Noah Sadler are two best friends who seem completely different at first glance – Noah is the child of a famous photographer, while Abdi is the child of Somalian refugees who have come to the UK to start a new life. One day, Noah and Abdi sneak out on a late-night excursion, which ends with Noah floating unconscious in a Bristol canal and Abdi refusing to tell anyone what happens. 

Detective Jim Clemo is assigned to investigate the incident, still reeling from a previous case gone terribly wrong. As he digs deeper into the case, racial battles erupt, and an ex-cop turned vengeful reporter from his past stands in his way as he tries to uncover the truth behind that fateful night. With Noah’s life hanging in the balance, Detective Clemo must find out what really happened before it’s too late.

The characters here were well-written with both strengths in personality and flaws, and they felt very realistic. I think Noah was the most well-written character here because the book explores every aspect of his character, from his caring side to his flaws. Abdi was also a great character, and I would’ve liked to see him narrate more because his narration was very realistic. Sofia was a courageous and inspiring character whose narration shone a light on the intensity of the situation.

This book was written more like a suspense-mystery book, with Detective Jim Clemo trying to unearth the events leading up to Noah turning up unconscious in a river. I think I would’ve preferred a less intense way of writing this story that focused more heavily on the emotions behind each character, but the suspense-mystery theme did a good job of keeping my attention, so I’d call that a minor nitpick. 

There were many red herrings and mystery devices in the book that kept me on the edge of my seat when reading this, and various plot twists shocked me as I was reading. There were some very emotional parts in this story, especially in the middle and near the very end of the book, that I felt were well written and serve as great examples as to how grief and loss could be written in stories. 

Despite this book technically being the second book in the Jim Clemo series, I felt that this book worked perfectly fine as a standalone book, mostly because the plot and characters (apart from the detective himself) are completely different. I hadn’t read the first book (entitled What She Knew), but I felt that I understood most aspects of the book fairly well without the context provided by the first book. While there were a few confusing parts that had context from the first book (primarily parts about Detective Clemo’s personal relationships and the police department), the plot and other characters needed no further context from what this book provides.  
 

I believe this book would have benefited from more insight into the racial conflict between the main characters of the story. Despite numerous mentions of racism and discrimination against Abdi and his family, it felt like these themes weren’t really explored in favour of the mystery of Abdi and Noah. 
 

I would recommend Odd Child Out to anyone who enjoys mysteries with prevalent themes of loss, grief and hope. It does have mentions of sexual violence and suicide; they are not often mentioned in the story but please keep that in mind when reading this book.

Overall, I would give this book a 9/10 for great writing and storytelling, with believable characters and good incorporation of mystery elements.