In this riveting crime novel, fourteen-year-old Steven "Steel" Trapp sets off with his mom and their dog, Cairo, on a two-day Amtrak journey to compete in the National Science Challenge in Washington, D.C. Steel is both blessed and cursed with a remarkable photographic memory - just one look, and whatever he sees is imprinted for keeps. Trying to be a Good Samaritan on the train, he unwittingly becomes embroiled in an ingenious plot that may have links to terrorists. Federal agents (first seen in Pearson's adult thriller Cut and Run) track Steel and his newfound science geek accomplice, Kaileigh Augustine, as they attempt to put together the pieces of a complex puzzle. Using Steel's science contest invention - and with the help of Cairo - Steel and Kaileigh lead listeners on an action-packed adventure as they attempt to prevent the unimaginable, before it's too late.
Here's a thriller you might recommend to a young listener and then listen to yourself. Written by the creator of the well-regarded Lou Boldt series, it appears to be the first installment of a series in which the protagonist is age 14. Steven Trapp, nicknamed Steel because he has a photographic memory, is off to Washington, DC, for a science competition. There he becomes involved in a situation that suggests a terrorist plot is afoot. William Dufris has an ideal voice for most of the characters. He's equally believable as a female FBI agent and the 14-year-old hero. When he revs up the action, he's at his best. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Ridley Pearson is the award-winning coauthor, along with Dave Barry, of Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, and Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. He has also written more than twenty best-selling novels, including Killer Weekend, and the young-adult fantasy The Kingdom Keepers. He was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction at Oxford University.
