Blacklands

Twelve-year-old Steven Lamb digs holes on Exmoor, hoping to find a body. Every day after school, while his classmates swap football stickers, Steven goes digging to lay to rest the ghost of the uncle he never knew, who disappeared aged eleven and is assumed to have fallen victim to the notorious serial killer Arnold Avery. Only Steven's Nan is not convinced her son is dead. She still waits for him to come home, standing bitter guard at the front window while her family fragments around her. Steven is determined to heal the widening cracks between them before it's too late. And if that means presenting his grandmother with the bones of her murdered son, he'll do it. So the boy takes the next logical step, carefully crafting a letter to Arnold Avery in prison. And there begins a dangerous cat-and-mouse game between a desperate child and a bored serial killer ...

ISBN 0552158844   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9780552158848 (What's this?)   Pages 352 Publisher Transworld Publishers Ltd   Weight (grammes) 240 Imprint Corgi Books   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 198 Publication date 02 Jan 2010   Width (mm) 127 DEWEY 823.92   Academic level General

“Bauer’s ability to shift between the perspective of a 12-year-old boy and a middle-age serial killer is brilliant and frightening all at once. . . . [her] debut novel promises to be the first of many good reads.”

—"The Post and Courier" (Charleston, SC)

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