Running Girl

＊Shortlisted for Costa 2014 Book Awards 2014! 入圍 2014英國科斯塔圖書獎

Garvie Smith is fortunate in his very striking mixed-race looks, but what mesmerizes people is his manner: laid-back, cool, charming, humorous, cheeky – and more than a little enigmatic. Although he has an exceptionally high IQ (and near-photographic memory), he does no work at school. Boys admire him. Girls throw themselves at him.

More often than not, his mother is on his case – about his inappropriate friends, casual drinking, occasional truancy and the odd spliff. Fortunately, his uncle – Chief Forensics Pathologist – is a little more tolerant.

Chloe Dow is the original Pushy Girl. Good-looking, vain, self-centred, determined to make something of herself. And she’s also dead. Her body, still dressed in her jogging kit, has just been fished out of Pike Pond.

To Detective Raminder Singh – aloof, exam-passing Sikh officer in charge of the investigation – it’s obvious that she was attacked while out jogging along one of her usual routes. Suspects include a stalker, a man in a red Porsche and a deranged ex-boyfriend. But Garvie is puzzled why she seems to have been wearing someone else’s running shoes. Now he’s interested . . .

A brand-new teen crime novel from one of today's great storytellers.

Simon Mason is an author of children's and adult books. His first adult novel won the Betty Trask First Novel award. He has written four novels about the Quigley family for David Fickling Books, the first of which was Highly Commended for the Branford Boase award in 2002. His last book for DFB, Moon Pie, was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. He lives in Oxford with his wife and their two children.