The Crew

Kerb-crawlers. Corrupt coppers. Pimps. Prostitutes. Derelict houses. Drug dealers. Welcome to the mean streets of Britain where, in a city centre estate Stonehenged with tower blocks, a band of teenagers struggles to survive in an underworld of criminality and deprivation. Billy, the narrator and leader of 'the crew', lives with his Indian mum, a community worker and her boyfriend Nanny, a cheroot-chuffing Rastafarian. The crew is similarly mixed and multicultural: there's baby-face Ellie who has a soft spot for our Billy, wildchild Della who boomerangs in and out of foster care, kick-boxing Jas, DJ wannabe Will, not to mention Zeus, the crew's mascot, a salivating but soppy Rottweiler. Having introduced crew and community, the story really starts when they find a bag brimful of banknotes in an alleyway. Abduction follows. Then murder. And a police and public mutually suspicious must work together to uncover the Mr Big behind it all. Tick-tocking chapter headings help to create a sense of urgency and the switching of narrator at dramatic moments instils immediacy to the action. Engagingly direct in tone, grittily realistic in theme, this uncompromising, streetwise story is sure to appeal to teenagers.