Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick

Britt Pfeifer wants to prove herself and so sets out on a trekking trip with best friend Korbie. Britt has been dating Korbie’s brother, Calvin but he dumped her just before the school prom.  The trip starts off badly; Britt and Korbie get stuck in a snow storm.  They find shelter in a cabin but they are in even more danger now; two criminals on the run are sheltering there.

All is not as it seems. Britt gradually finds out that the real criminal is neither Shaun nor Mason (whose real name is Jude). Calvin has killed five young women, apparently because of his jealousy of their success.  He has been holed up in family cabin, pretending to have been attending Stanford. Britt also witnesses him killing Shaun.

Calvin’s father had persistently bullied him. We are led to believe that is why he behaves the way that he does.

Calvin attempts to kill himself by hanging but Britt and Jude rescue him in time.  However, he has suffered brain damage.  He will still probably get a life sentence but not in normal jail.

Britt’s friendship with Korbie is ruined.

However, she goes to college, makes some good friends and meets up with Jude again in the summer.

This is a fast-paced novel, with well-drawn characters and a convincing setting.

It is 401 pages long.   

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The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

 

2012 

teen, upper secondary  Key Stage 4, ages 14 -17, Dashner  James, science fantasy, thriller

This is the second book in the Maze Runner series.  Thomas and his comrades have now got out of the maze but have to face more trials.  They have to cross a dessert plain to arrive at safety.  WICKED set them countless trials and for much of the time they cannot be sure about the outside people they are dealing with, or indeed about each other.

This actually poses many questions for the young reader: do the young people here have free will or are they being manipulated?

Relationships change and no one is really sure whom they can trust. Or is this just part of what WICKED is doing to them?

Thomas is told everything is being done so that he and his comrades can help save the world. A pandemic has occurred, triggered by sun spot activity and therefore named The Flare. It gradually changes its victims form well-adjusted humans into something that resembles the archetypal zombie. Society needs to be reconstructed and made safe.  

There is a love interest. Thomas gets close to Teresa, with whom he communicates telepathically. Then there is Brenda.

Aris, a male, at one point seems to have replaced Teresa and towards the end of the novel Thomas finds he can communicate telepathically with Brenda and Aris as well.   

This second book ends on a cliff-hanger – making us all want to tackle the next one.

The novel is 360 pages. It uses an adult font and the text is blocked. The language is quite sophisticated.

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Wicked Little Deeds by Kat Ellis

 

2021 

Dead-eyed Sadie is said to appear just before a member of the Thorn family is about to die. This seems indeed to happen as people around Ava Thorn die or are murdered.  She becomes a suspect in a murder case and in turn she and her unlikely ally, Dominic Miller, suspect one of their teachers.

The Millers and the Thorns have been enemies for some time.  Dominic and Ava find out out that his may go back to the time of Sadie Burnett Miller who was left to die by the Thorn family. Her eyes were gouged out.  Despite Dominic’s sister Freya and Ava’s best friend Ford being two of the people who die, Ava and Dominic become close.

Ava’s parents were killed in a car accident and Ava blames Dominic’s father, whose car slammed into theirs on an icy evening as they drove home. Ava’s Uncle Ty and his wife Caroline have to sell the manor, the Thorn family home, before the bank forecloses and Ava is astounded that they sell it to the Millers. Freya and Ava clash particularly; they are both promising art students and compete for the summer school art scholarship. Ava still endures nightmares and more recently has also had  hallucinations. She puts this down to the trauma of losing her parents and of being the one who found Freya’s body.  

The truth is horrible.  Caroline is a fortune-seeker. Uncle Ty resented Ava’s father as her grandfather had left Ty none of his fortune.  Much of the proceeds of the sale of the manor has been put into a trust fund for Ava. But Caroline and Ty plot to kill her and frame her for Freya and Ford’s deaths. Caroline has systematically been adding a drug to Ava’s drinks. She and Ty were also instrumental in her parents’ death and the arrival of Mr Miller was just a lucky (unlucky?)  coincidence.

Ava and Dominic almost get trapped in the manor which is burnt to the ground.      

There are also strong bildungsroman elements in this.  Ava grows: she loses her family home and the value she attached to it, she overcomes the enmity between the two families and she finds out that her beloved uncle Ty and her close friend Ford were not quite what they seemed.   

This is a fast-paced novel and keeps readers engaged right to the end. Yet there is also plenty of solid character development.

This is a long book – 385 pages of blocked text in a serif font. 

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Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz

                                                            

 

 

2015, first published 2013  

This is the tenth and final book in the series.  It is really some back story and gives a first person account of Yassen Gregorovich, whom Alex Rider, his father and his uncle have encountered.

We learn how Gregorovich became as assassin. His parents were involved in something dangerous. This went wrong and he had to fend for himself.  He ends up becoming involved in Scorpia. He is a reluctant killer at first but manages to develop the habit. This novel ends where he allows Alex to escape.

The use of first person is unusual here yet it still doesn’t read quite like a YA book yet. This is supposed to be Gregorovich rereading his diary just before he goes out on a mission.  Only the last couple of chapters are concerned with the present mission. This is the only part where we see Alex. The diary however is a little too sophisticated for a young man, especially in the early parts which he should have written when he was a young boy living on the streets. We have to suspend our disbelief. However, this form does give us some insight into the character.   

There are shades of Oliver Twist. When he lives on the streets he meets a character called Fagin. He is pushed through an open window and gets caught by the man he is trying to rob. This man does indeed take him in. However, he is not as kind as Oilver’s rescuer.    

The book is 405 pages long with blocked text in a simple font.

Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz

                                                               

 

2015, first published 2011  

This is the ninth of the Alex Rider books.  The pace and the tension have increased even more.   There is a marked emotional tension this time as well.  He gets even closer to Jack Starbright and we also learn that there has been a meaningful kiss between him and Sabine Pleasure.   

Alex meets his doppelganger, Julius Grief. Grief is a clone of his father and in a previous novel has been made to look exactly like Alex.  Alex kills for the first time.  He confronts his evil “twin”.

Alan Blunt is about to be replaced by Mrs Jones as the head of M16. Blunt has fallen out of favour with the Prime Minister. At the end of the novel we learn that Blunt has acted in a devious way.  All is not black and white.  We are verging on YA material. Blunt comments that “A German philosopher once wrote that he who fights monsters must take care that he doesn’t become one himself.  Our work is monstrous. I’m afraid there is no escaping it” (427).  Is this foreshadowing something for Alex?  The blurb on the back of the book describes this as “Alex’s final mission”.  There is another book. Will Ale become a monster?

Alex is changed. Jack has died because of becoming involved in one of Alex’s activities. Alex has taken a life.   

We have many adult points of view here. The first 107 pages are about various criminal activities and also some of Alan Blunt’s and Mrs Jones’ work. Blunt and Jones have a significant chapter towards the end of the novel.  We are also in the point of view of Edward Pleasure near the end.

The novel ends on an upbeat note.  Scorpia has been shut down and many of its members are arrested. Alex leaves London, taking very few belongings and goes to live with the Pleasures in San Francisco.

The book is 431 pages long with blocked text in a simple font.

Deadly Famous by Richard Kidd

                                                          

 

 2001   

Stanley Buckle befriends reclusive artist Neville Windrush.  Neville disappears one day and is presumed dead.  His paintings start selling for a lot of money.  Stanley is invited to Neville’s posthumous exhibition.  He learns that Neville is not dead and that there is a plot to kill him in order to keep the price of his work high.

 Stanley works out where Neville is and goes looking for him. He fool s his mother into thinking he is safely on a nature trip.

On the journey he encounters Elsie Robinson and Francesco Allegretto.  Elsie is a motherly figure.  He suspects Allegretto is the contract killer.  It turns out to be Elsie.

There are numerous twists and turns but Neville and Stanley survive. The big surprise is then that Neville is the father of the Stanley’s friend Ewart. Neville had left the island not knowing about Ewart. We get a charming fairy-tale ending.        

The story is framed as Sally’s uncle tells her why the picture of Neville’s that he has has a bullet hole in it. An epilogue shows us Sally and her uncle being taken by helicopter to Neville’s exhibition. Her uncle is Stanley Buckle and Neville is now so rich and famous he can provide a helicopter for them.

Each chapter heading is a song title and has a line drawing at the beginning that hints at the content. The chapters are of substantial length.  The novel is 204 pages long and uses blocked text with an adult font.    

Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz

                                                          

 

 

2015, first published 2009  

     

This is the eighth of the Alex Rider books.  The pace is if anything even faster than in the previous seven volumes.  Alex doesn’t even make it to school on his first day back after a suspension. And whilst he is suspended he has another adventure.   

His relationship with Sabina Pleasure is growing and the his story opens with him on holiday in Scotland with her and her family.  As Alex, Sabina and her father make their way back from a New Year’s Eve party to where they are staying, the car leaves the road and plunges into a freezing lake. Alex recues Edward Pleasure.  

At the party, Alex has upset host Desmond McCain by beating him at a card game.  McCain, an ex-con but born again Christian who has become a priest, may also be upset with Pleasure,  a journalist who  has the nasty habit of uncovering the truth about apparently generous superrich people.

After Alex is kidnapped on his way to school the pace just does not relent.        

The book is 406 pages long, with blocked text and an adult but simple font. The chapters are quite long.  

Being by Kevin Brooks

 

2007 

Fostered sixteen-year old Robert Smith goes for a routine endoscopy and things go badly wrong.

The novel is a car chase from the very beginning. Short sentences and frequent line-breaks maintain a fast pace. Kevin Brooks keeps us guessing all of the time. The pace slows later as the story turns to romance and sex. 

Robert tells his own story in a first person immediate narrative that as so often in books written for young adults makes the reader feel as though the narrator is their best friend and is telling their story in order to work what has happened. 

Is it a thriller? Is it a science fiction?  There is violence and Robert takes risks. There are also elements of the thriller in this novel.  

There is something odd about Robert and the reader is left to find her own explanation. 

The fast pace and the thriller elements in the first part of the story make it seem suitable for teens. 

The content in the latter half of the book brings it more firmly into the YA area.