In a Split Second

January 1, 2015
In a very near future, two teenagers in a scarcely functional London are caught up in terrorist plots.Nat and Charlie live in an England with an economy just a touch worse than the real thing: Austerity cuts are closing hospitals, shrinking police departments, and leaving countless people unemployed and hungry. As the novel opens, Charlie, fighting with her mum in the free food line, barely survives the terrorist bomb that claims her mother's life. Nat knows about the bomb but-convinced his brother, Lucas, is the bomber-tries and fails to stop the attack in time. Now Charlie lives with relatives, and Nat (who hasn't reported his suspicions about Lucas) needs to understand his now-comatose brother's motivations. How had cheerful, peaceful Lucas fallen in with the racist terrorists of the League of Iron? In a series of brief first-person chapters, Nat and Charlie cope with the bombing's aftermath. Nat's attempts to infiltrate the League of Iron lead both teenagers into dangerous plots against the people and government of England (and into conversations with thugs who make violent, despicable, racist threats). Despite their attempts to defeat the villains, everything goes to hell just in time for the heavily foreshadowed reveals to set up the sequel. Though the action-packed suspense is up to snuff, heavy-handed Americanization leaves both characters and setting bland and flavorless. Lucky U.K. readers get cliffhangers and toothsome prose, but at least Americans still get the thrills of the shooting practice and bombing plots. (Thriller. 13-15)

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January 1, 2015
Gr 9 Up-Nat and Charlie are present at an outdoor market on the afternoon a bomb goes off. Nat knows the bombing is coming and, after reading an incriminating text, hopes to stop his brother Lucas from involvement; Charlie knows nothing more than annoyance that her mother won't consent to her wish for a tattoo. Both are never the same after that fateful day in this near-future London when a racist, extremist group called the Iron Hand, which blames the bleak economic picture on immigrants and minorities, claims responsibility for the bomb, including the death of Charlie's mother and the coma of Nat's brother Lucas. Six months later, their paths cross again when Charlie's uncle offers her a home and enrolls her in a private school that Nat and his twin sister attend. Both teens are desperate for answers about what happened to their loved ones and maybe for revenge, but Nat is hoping to get those by infiltrating the Iron Hand. Eventually, the two become allies amid growing romantic feelings as they train in a secret group that seeks to preserve England. Engaged in dangerous missions with other teens, Nat and Charlie take action at last. Perhaps twice as long as it needs to be, especially for the suspense and action genres, this novel may fail to engage the reluctant readers it seems to be geared toward. A simple writing style doesn't quite make up for less than intriguing characters and peril that never manages to feel real.-"Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA"

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
Grades 8-11 As Nat charges through the market, looking for his brother Lucas, he spots a wild-haired girl arguing with her mother. Seconds later, the bomb explodes. Just like that, Lucas is dead, and Nat sees the same girl wailing over the body of her mother. The girl is Charlie, and all she can think is that the last words she said to her mother were angry ones. In the aftermath of her mother's death, Charlie ends up attending the same school as Nat, and they both share the desire for vengeance. Thus begins a high-speed waltz with danger as Charlie and Nat try to infiltrate the hate group that is claiming to have set the bomb. They uncover secret after secret, each more chilling than the last. This political whodunit, told in alternating first-person voices from both protagonists, boasts more than a dash of romance and plenty of action. The result is something of a cross between Pnina Moed Kass' Real Time (2004) and Robert Muchamore's CHERUB series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)