THE TORCH
Not since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time has there been such a compelling child narrator.
Herald Sun
Melbourne, 1960. Mrs Blayney and her twelve year old son, aka ‘the kid’, live in Richmond. At least, they did, until their house burnt down. The prime suspect – one Keith Aloysius Gonzaga Kavanagh, also aged 12 – has mysteriously disappeared. Our narrator, the kid, sets off on a covert mission to find young Keith, who he privately dubs ‘Flame Boy’, to save him from the small army of irate locals – not to mention Mrs Blayney – who want to see him put away.
Flame Boy has not only made himself scarce, but he’s disappeared with a very important brief case of secrets, which the kid is keen to get hold of for his grandfather, a shady character, who’s got some secrets of his own. But the kid has got a lot going on: he’s also organising a new gang of kids; coping with the ups and downs of having a girl-friend; trying to avoid Keith’s dangerous prison-escapee father, Fergus Kavanagh, also an arsonist, who is suspected of selling secrets to the Russians; and all the while dreaming of the most covetable item in the world: the Melbourne Olympic Torch.
A madcap and irresistibly fun novel about loss, discovery and living life to the full, The Torch is a little ripper of a ride.