Red Kayak

Synopsis

Red Kayak is written from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old boy named Brady Parks who is part of a poor crab-fishing family on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. A wealthy family, the DiAngelos buy a property Brady and his friends are used to enjoying near the water. One day, Brady sees a red kayak owned by the DiAngelos heading into the river in dangerous weather. The narration of Brady from the future, which is the literal voice of the novel, foreshadows grave consequences of Brady deciding not to call out a warning to the canoe's occupants, later revealed to be Mrs. DiAngelo and her three-year-old son, Ben. The kayak capsizes, Brady valiantly rescues Ben, is hailed as a hero, and then suffers grief when Ben dies a short time later at the hospital.

Brady assuages his grief by working for the DiAngelo family on their property, but in doing so discovers evidence that the canoe had been sabotaged by his two friends, JT and Digger. The sabotage involved a method that Brady thought up as a fantasy, though never intended to carry out: drilling holes in the canoe bottom and plugging them with water soluble filler. The central section of the book then consists of Brady confronting his friends, feeling partly responsible, hiding the evidence, deliberating over the correct course of action, and generally suffering debilitating, internal, moral conflict.

In final section of the book, Brady does the "right" thing, and tells his father everything. They recover the canoe which was still sunken in the water, and which clearly shows the holes drilled in the hull. Brady testifies to the authorities who agree to grant him immunity in exchange for his testimony. In the end he's relieved that the sentence handed to his friends was not too harsh: 9 months of forest restoration in a juvenile work camp. The DiAngelos sell their property and start anew elsewhere. Life goes on for Brady and his friends and Brady hopes that their friendships survive.