Phoenix Island

December 2, 2013
An unusual premise makes Dixon’s thriller debut a welcome series kickoff. Carl Freeman, a 16-year-old orphan, can’t help himself from intervening on behalf of the bullied, and, given his boxing prowess, the results for the aggressors are often quite serious. After another such run-in, a judge sentences Carl to “a military-style boot camp,” Phoenix Island, until he turns 18. The facility is worse than anything he could have imagined, with sadistic drill sergeants, violent fellow detainees, and plenty of bullies. Carl’s independence earns him the enmity of a particularly cruel drill sergeant. Carl discovers a journal that suggests some of his predecessors were actually killed, indicating that something beyond tough love is going on. There are some predictable elements—Carl falls for an attractive girl with a secret—but the pacing and smooth prose will have suspense fans waiting for the next book, as well as the upcoming CBS adaptation, Intelligence. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency.

December 15, 2013
This action-packed novel (with YA crossover appeal) combines adventure with extreme violence and concerns a young boxer sent to a very special youth boot camp. Carl Freeman has never been able to stand by and watch while someone is bullied, and that's become a problem for him. An up-and-coming boxer who won a national championship, Carl can't force himself to walk away whenever a kid's being bullied. As a result, the orphaned son of a police officer and a cancer victim has found himself in and out of the juvenile justice system. Now, at age 16, Carl has been sent to a place off the coast of Mexico called Phoenix Island, where he meets the beautiful Octavia and Ross, a kid who can't seem to stop himself from telling jokes, even if that leads to severe punishment. And there's plenty of punishment to go around at Phoenix Island, purportedly a boot camp for troubled kids. Only thing is, every kid on the island turns out to be an orphan, and all of those orphans seem to be expendable, or at least that's what Carl suspects when he finds a journal kept by a previous inhabitant of Phoenix. Forced marches, food deprivation and nonstop training don't bother Carl, but he has an issue with the viciousness that one particular drill sergeant evinces. When things come to a head, Carl finds that all of his suspicions about the island prove even worse than he thought in this crisply written and imaginative effort. Dixon's page-turner will keep readers of all ages enthralled. A fast-paced, exciting novel with the promise of future installments.

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