Black Mail

Black Mail is that fairly unusual thing, a comedy thriller for teenagers. Set in modern Germany, its world is that of pop music and the Internet, with two leading characters whose bizarre converging fates drive the plot. One is a pop musician called Darlis Diller (actually Andrew Mills from Sheffield) whose career is chaotically resurfacing, six years after most of his rock group died in a crazy plane crash. Alas, Darlis is in thrall to an imaginary demon called the Dhuud. The other ‘lead’ is Darlis’s biggest fan, a 17-year-old German boy, Johnny Mallak. Johnny frees himself to follow Darlis’s German tour by tricking his boarding school into believing he is with his parents, and vice versa. Armed with a loan from his school room-mate (an apprentice criminal), Johnny sets off, keeping possible pursuit at bay by dutiful emails. Unfortunately, he accidentally receives an email from a Swedish gang of Internet hackers and blackmailers who, realising their mistake, set out to limit the damage by killing him. From this freak error flows violence and mayhem. The comedy lies mainly in Johnny’s engaging innocence. Pursuing Darlis as a dedicated fan, he all unwittingly leaves death and devastation in his wake, while leading a charmed life himself. The author writes on computer subjects for children, and his novel is like a computer game. Unfolding in a hectic series of snappy incidents, it is a lightweight, witty, page-turning entertainment, as trendy as any teenager could wish.