Like most novelists, Niall
Leonard pays tribute to a whole host of people in his acknowledgements.
But there’s one name that stands
out from the crowd. “And above all to my beloved wife Erika,” writes Leonard,
“for her boundless love, loyalty, humour, encouragement and inspiration.”
Yes, the Erika in question is EL
James, whose Fifty Shades of Grey has
sold well over 6 million copies in the UK and has become the country’s
bestselling book ever.
Leonard is unlikely to match his
wife’s sales any time soon but Crusher,
his debut novel, is a gritty, fast-paced thriller for teenagers that gripped me
from start to finish.
Funnily enough, it was James
herself who encouraged her TV screenwriter husband (his credits include Wire in the Blood and Silent Witness) to write the book in the
first place. He decided to take part in the 2011 NaNoWriMo (the annual novel
writing challenge) and Crusher was
the result.
The novel tells the story of teenager
Finn Maguire, who returns home from his dead-end café job one day to find that
his stepdad has been bludgeoned to death.
Finn has no idea who might have
had a grudge against the impoverished, out-of-work actor. He is even more stunned
when it turns out that the police see him as the prime suspect for the murder.
As one cop tells him: "Ninety per cent of the time the person who reports finding a dead body is the murderer... You might as well have written a confession in your stepfather's blood."
Determined to prove his innocence
and find out who hated his stepdad enough to murder him, Finn resolves to track
the killer down. But his quest takes him into the scary heart of the London
underworld and exposes dark family secrets from the past.
I’m clearly not the target
audience for Crusher but Leonard,
unlike many YA writers, is a brilliant at getting inside the head of a troubled
teenager. Boys of 14 and up will enjoy it, but I reckon girls and adult readers
will too.
Crusher by Niall Leonard (Doubleday,
£12.99)
