Solid mystery with a murder, a mobster, and a rough and tumble main character who's good at punching people. Plenty of profanity, and hints of darker violence, but what's on page isn't too bad. A compelling quick read. ( )

An average thriller. Nothing too special, but the ride was eventful.

Nevertheless, I would not continue with the series. There was nothing particularly memorable about it. ( )

A look at the UK's underworld, a decent but not great teen crime novel. ( )

This review first appeared on The Book Zone(For Boys) blog

The market for adult crime fiction is huge, but until relatively recently you could count the number of crime books published for young adults on the fingers of one hand. Fortunately publishers and authors have obviously decided that there is a market out there for gritty young adult crime fiction, the most notable example to date being Peter Cocks' Eddie Savage books, and now author Niall Leonard brings another hugely enjoyable story to the party.

Main character Finn Maguire's life is not a particularly happy one. He has bombed out of school, his father is a washed up ex-TV actor, now wannabe writer, and the only way any food gets on the table is through the pennies Finn earns working at the local burger joint. However, even though life is pretty miserable, things get very much worse before the opening chapter comes to a close as Finn arrives home from work to find his father has been murdered. And you think that's bad - before he knows it Finn finds himself carted off to the local nick, placed into an interview room and treated as a suspect rather than a potential witness. With little evidence to suggest he was responsible Finn is soon released from custody, albeit somewhat reluctantly by the officer in charge of the investigation, at which point he decides that he is going to track down his father's murderer.

The true strength of this book is the characterisation of Finn - Niall Leonard certainly knows how to write disaffected teenagers. So many people wrongly believe teens who bomb out of school to be knife-carrying delinquents who are just hanging around on street corners waiting for the next riot to kick-off. Whilst this is true of some, the majority are honest, fiercely loyal and desperate to work and prove themselves to the world. Unfortunately for so many their situation makes this very difficult. This is exactly how Finn is, which is why he so bravely sets out to find out who murdered his father. The other characters too are well developed, and add true sparkle to the story.

Where the story falls down slightly, especially in comparison to Peter Cocks' Long Reach, is the plotting. Whilst it is exciting and fast-paced, making it almost unputdownable, there are a few glaring holes and convenient coincidences that mean that a certain degree of disbelief suspension is required. However, I would suggest that the underlying plot of 'teen out for justice' is more believable than Long Reach's 'teen being recruited as undercover cop'.

Niall Leonard never patronises his teen audience. There is violence, swearing and also a brief sex scene. It is so welcoming to read a book that hasn't been sanitised by a nervous editor or publisher - teens do drink, swear and have sex and to remove these elements from a book about an older teen would be to do the readers a disservice. For this I applaud both Niall Leonard and Doubleday. ( )

So if we can make money from shading gray, by association this one should be worth more than a shot in the dark....

Crusher...or The Sad State of Publishing...