2015
A girl is found dead.
She is Caddy, Matt’s brother. When the police car arrives at his home he thinks it is to do with some drugs he may have sold. A polish girl is taken to hospital after a bad reaction to the drugs.
Matt has other problems: his friends owe money to Slippy their supplier. He has to hide from him as well.
His relationship with his father and step-mother becomes even more strained than it was before. He is thrown out of university.
The police seem to solve the crime and close the case.
Matt now has a tentative relationship with Amy, Caddy’s best friend, and the person who discovered her body at the back of the school bus.
Between them they work out that the police have it wrong and in their attempt to uncover the real culprits, their lives are put in danger. Their rescue comes from an unlikely source: Jimmy, who lives a strange life and who is related to the real murderer.
Matt has to go to court because of drug offences. We leave the story in that open-ended state that thrives in YA: we’re not sure what his sentence will be, how his life will carry on or how his relationship with Amy will work out. We are left feeling optimistic, however.
The book in paperback is 322 pages. Pace is aided by very short chapters. We are mainly in Matt’s point of view but occasionally we slip into others’. Note, this text contains a lot of strong language.
