Stone Cold (Puffin teenage fiction) - Softcover

Swindells, Robert

3.27

5,989 ratings by Goodreads

9780140362510: Stone Cold (Puffin teenage fiction)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140362517 ISBN 13: 9780140362510

Publisher: Puffin, 1995

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Stone Cold is an exciting and disturbing thriller by Robert Swindells

A tense, exciting thriller combined with a perceptive and harrowing portrait of life on the streets as a serial killer preys on the young and vulnerable homeless. 17-year-old Link is distrustful of people until he pairs up with Deb, homeless like him. But what Deb doesn't tell him is that she's an ambitious young journalist on a self-imposed assignment to track down the killer and that she's prepared to use herself as bait ...

Winner of the Carnegie Medal

Robert Swindells lives on the Yorkshire moors and is a full-time writer. He has won the Children's Book Award twice, for BROTHER IN THE LAND and for ROOM 13. In 1994, he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD, and also the Sheffield Book Award.

Also by Robert Swindells:

Brother in the Land; Room 13; Stone Cold; Nightmare Stairs; Unbeliever; Blitzed; Ruby Tanya; The Thousand Eyes of Night; The Tunnel; The Shade of Hettie Daynes; Burnout; In the Nick of Time; Daz 4 Zoe; Snakebite; Snapshot; Branded; Roger's War; No Angels; Wrecked; Jacqueline Hyde; Stayling Up; A Serpent's Tooth; Follow a Shadow; Timesnatch; Unbeliever; The Last Bus

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Review:

Stone Cold, winner of the 1994 Carnegie Medal, serves as a sinister warning to any young runaway and not just because there is a killer on the loose. Narrated by 17-year-old Link, homeless and jobless in London after being driven out of home by a drunken, abusive stepfather, he vividly recounts the day-to-day experiences of a homeless person. Because he tells it like it is, his descriptions of sleeping rough shatter any romantic notions: "So you pick your spot. Wherever it is ... it's going to have a floor of stone, tile, concrete or brick. In other words it's going to be hard and cold. It might be a bit cramped, too--shop doorways often are. And remember, if it's winter you're going to be half-frozen before you even start."

If this was just another diatribe on the perils of sleeping rough, the reader's interest would soon wane but it is far more gripping than that. The author alternates Link's tale with that of an unknown serial killer preying on the homeless. You, the reader, see how closely their lives brush against each other and know it's only a matter of time before they clash. Will Link be joining the other recruits in the cellar--what a deterrent that would be! (Age 11 and over.) --Nicola Perry

About the Author:

Robert Swindells was born in Bradford in 1939 and continues to live in Yorkshire. He left school at 15 and worked in a variety of jobs, including primary school teaching, before becoming a full-time writer. His widely acclaimed novels often reflect his political passions, such as BROTHER IN THE LAND, which is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. He has won the Red House Children's Book Prize several times and in 1993 he won the prestigious Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD, a young adult novel about homelessness.

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