Peter Corris’ novel for young adults grabs you from the very first page. The opening paragraphs introduce 15-year-old Bartholomew Fletcher, Bart to his friends, who is in hospital with a broken leg and coming to terms with the realisation that his best friend, Jack, had deliberately tripped him in a game of touch football. Jack has been behaving really strangely since returning from a trip to Queensland. Bart, who is part Italian, and Jack, who is Indian, had met in their first days in high school when they had defended themselves against the school bully for calling them ‘wogs’. They had very quickly become best friends despite their different backgrounds, Bart being brought up by his mother and never having known his father and Jack coming from a large and boisterous family. This is a book about the issues of today-racism and ignorance, drugs and the consequences associated with them, single families, betrayal, friendship, falling in love and acceptance. This very readable and well written book will appeal to the 14+ age bracket and readers will want to learn the secrets Bart discovers about his family, which enable him to unravel the mystery of Jack’s strange behaviour.

Susan Watt is a bookseller at The Next Chapter books in Wahroonga, New South Wales

Tags: peter corris