The Terrorist

by Caroline B. Cooney

Overview

A terrorist attack in London sends a teenage girl on a dangerous hunt for revenge in this gripping suspense novel from the author of The Voice on the Radio.
 
Laura and Billy Williams are two ordinary American expat kids living with their parents in England. Then, in an instant, everything changes when Billy is handed a mysterious package in a London Underground station . . .
 
Billy’s tragic death leaves a hole in Laura’s heart, one that soon becomes filled with anger and a burning obsession to find the terrorist responsible for taking her brother’s life. Her search for the truth takes her into dangerous territory, forcing Laura to question everyone she knows and everything she believes.
 
The bestselling author of The Face on the Milk Carton ratchets up the tension in this thriller about a girl who will stop at nothing to separate the truth from the lies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781453274675
Publisher:	Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Publication date:	09/04/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	814,747
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	710L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Caroline B. Cooney (b. 1947) is the author of nearly a hundred books, including the famed young adult thriller The Face on the Milk Carton, an international bestseller. Cooney’s books have been translated into several languages, and have received multiple honors and awards, including an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults award and a nomination for the Edgar Allan Poe Award. She is best known for her popular teen horror thrillers and romance novels. Her fast-paced, plot-driven work often explores themes of good and evil, love and hatred, right and wrong, and moral ambiguity. Born in Geneva, New York, Cooney grew up in Connecticut, and often sets her novels in dramatic New England landscapes. She has three children and four grandchildren and currently lives in South Carolina.  

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Exciting, compulsive reading.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Thought-provoking as well as a just plain good read.” —Publishers Weekly

Interviews

Caroline B. Cooney lives in South Carolina.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Caroline B. Cooney
“[A] thriller master.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“No one writes suspense like Cooney. Haunting, harrowing . . . hard to put down.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“Cooney has hit it out of the ballpark yet again. A must read.” —VOYA on No Such Person
 
“Full of twists and turns . . . Has all the elements that keep young mystery lovers coming back for more.” —School Library Journal on No Such Person
 

From the Publisher

Accomplished storyteller Cooney's (The Face on the Milk Carton) latest thriller combines heartpounding suspense with some sobering reflections on the insular attitude characteristic of many Americans both at home and abroad. Eleven-year-old Billy Williams is an American boy spending a year in London with his teenage sister, Laura, and their parents. Bubbling over with projects, grand ambitions (including a plan to visit every inch of China) and a multitude of get-rich-quick schemes, Billy is as engaging as he is exuberantmaking it especially horrifying when, at the end of the first chapter, he is killed by a terrorist bomb in an Underground station. Thanks to the convincing storytelling and clever (if somewhat manipulative) plotting, it's easy enough to imagine the family's stunned grief and to empathize with likable (yet remarkably nave) Laura as she becomes entangled with a Muslim classmate's scheme to use Billy's passport to emigrate to the U.S. Gripping from the very start, the narrative becomes nearly impossible to put down as it races to its nail-biting though slightly far-fetched climax. Nicely observed bits of a London beyond the usual tourist spots combine with authentic details of the expatriate lifestyle (e.g., the American students' contraband trade in Hostess Twinkies and Kraft macaroni & cheese) to add plenty of local color to the international intrigue. Thought-provoking as well as a just plain good read. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 5-10A provocative look at an American family living abroad, destroyed by a not-so-random act of violence. Billy, 11, a brash but lovable all-American boy, accepts a package from a stranger in a London subway station and becomes the victim of a bomb. His grieving 16-year-old sister is obsessed with capturing the unknown terrorist. An average student at the London International Academy, she alienates her circle of friends as she begins to suspect each of them. Laura, the typical Cooney heroine, is rather self-centered, plodding through life until tested by trauma. She and her family play the roles of well-meaning, but rather ignorant Americans, oblivious of the world in which they live. Plausibility takes a back seat to plot toward the end as Laura neatly places herself in the hands of the cold-hearted villain. Not since Barbara Parks's Mick Harte Was Here (Knopf, 1995) has a deceased sibling been so carefully memorialized. Indeed, readers come to know the short-lived Billy better than many of the other characters, including the vaguely draw villain, whose motivation is never really clear. Cynicism rather than honor is the victor at the tale's conclusion; it ends not with a bang, but a whimper. While this book is not as gut-wrenchingly terrifying as Robert Cormier's After the First Death (Pantheon, 1979), Cooney's fans will find it more accessible and even harder to put down.Marilyn Payne Phillips, University City Public Library, MO

School Library Journal

Fans know what to expect from Cooney (The Voice on the Radio, 1996, etc.): bullet-train pacing and entertaining prose. This accessible offering opens as Billy Williams, 11, accepts a package from a passerby and is blown up in a London tube station. The action is full steam ahead as the Williams family mourns and attempts to go on, except for Laura, 16, who embarks on an absorbing and obsessive journey to find her brother's killer. The novel isn't perfect: Laura's transformation from a self-involved "ugly" American abroad to vengeful paranoiac is fairly convincing, although readers may have trouble getting past their initial dislike of her and her self-satisfied oblivion. While most of the characters are as real as their grief—making human choices, and suffering the consequences—others simply fade out of the story, and the culprit is based more on a stereotype than on logic.

If the novel requires a few big leaps of faith, readers will be glad they stayed with it, and will be caught up in exciting, compulsive reading.

Kirkus Reviews