Carnegie-prize winning author, Melvin Burgess, has written a long-awaited new novel.  This compelling story of a teenager caught in a corrupt 1980s care home is a powerful study of a particularly highly charged and distressing subject and one that is frighteningly topical now 30 years later.  Handled with great sensitivity and engrossing narrative drive, Nicholas Dane is an important addition to the understanding of how teenage lives can go so wrong.

Synopsis

When Nick's mother dies suddenly, the fourteen-year-old is sent straight into a boys' home, where he finds institutional intimidation and violence keep order. After countless fights and punishments, Nick thinks life can't get any worse - but the professionally respected deputy head, Mr Creal, who has been grooming him with sweets and solace, has something much more sinister in mind. The scarring, shaming experience he suffers at the hands of Mr Creal can never quite be suppressed, and when the old hatred surfaces, bloody murder and revenge lead to an unforgettable climax.

Reviews

"The same anger at social injustice that fuelled Dickens’ Oliver Twist drives Nicholas Dane, but Burgess also embraces Dickens’ taste for high drama, fast pace, and wonderful, larger-than-life characters that make you really care. It will engage your heart as much as your mind. It may shock you. It will definitely disturb you. But that is exactly why we need novels like Nicholas Dane and novelists like Melvin Burgess. Nicholas Dane is certainly an important book that needed to be written."
The Telegraph

About the Author

Melvin Burgess was born in Sussex in 1954. He did poorly at school and after a short period training as a journalist had a number of odd jobs and was unemployed for much of the time. His first book, The Cry of ther Wolf, was published in 1990, and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He has since won the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award for his controversial novel, Junk, The Lancashire Children's Book Award for Bloodtide and the LA Times Best Young Adult Book of the Year award for Doing It. His work has been widely adapted for stage and TV, and he has built up a reputation for controversial, hard-hitting books dealing with themes ranging from sex and drugs to adaptions of Norse mythology. Melvin lives and works in Manchester. He has two children, Oliver and Pearl. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation