Al Capone Shines My Shoes

This is the second story featuring 12-year-old Moose Flanagan, who lives with his family on Alcatraz Island where his father works as a prison officer. The year is 1935, and while Moose is a thoroughly decent boy he gradually finds himself drawn into an unwanted and increasingly dangerous relationship with Al Capone himself, who comes over as appropriately sinister and manipulative. Also at stake are Moose’s various friendships with children both on and off the island, and perhaps most important of all the future happiness or otherwise of his severely autistic sister Natalie. And to cap it all, Moose is struggling with some unfamiliar new feelings for Piper, the attractive but potentially explosive daughter of another prison officer. The scene is therefore set for a cracking good story, and this is what readers get, with the chirpy tone set by the author never disguising the fact that serious issues are also continually involved. Cleverly constructed and compulsively readable, this excellent novel deserves a wide readership as Moose struggles towards finding his way through the moral morass surrounding him sometimes at every quarter.