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Double Cross
500 pages
A tense, high-stakes thriller where the desperate desire for a better life collides violently with the inescapable gravity of the streets.
What it feels like
This propulsive thriller plunges readers into an anxious, dread-soaked atmosphere where every choice feels like a trap. The narrative moves with urgent, gritty momentum, capturing the suffocating weight of racial tension and neighborhood gang conflicts. It explores the heartbreaking reality of young people trying to outrun their circumstances, only to find themselves pulled back into the violence they desperately wish to escape. The prose is direct and suspenseful, keeping the stakes impossibly high as the characters navigate a dangerous no-man's land between ambition and survival. It is a perfect read for those who devour socially conscious, high-stakes fiction where the emotional toll of the streets forces protagonists into devastating moral compromises and inevitable, explosive confrontations.
- Mood
- dread-soaked
- dangerous
- anxious
- Tone
- tense
- urgent
- gritty
- serious
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- inescapable pasts · gang conflict and survival · racial tension · the cost of compromise
- The writing
- Direct and suspenseful, built to maintain the relentless tension of a thriller.
- The arc
- Moves from a desperate hope for a clean escape to a violent, inevitable confrontation with the forces of the streets.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave high-stakes, socially conscious thrillers where young protagonists are forced into impossible moral corners.
Content notes
- gang violence
- terrorism/bombings
- racial conflict
- death of a family member
About the book
The fourth novel in the award-winning Noughts & Crosses sequence - this powerful thriller also tackles new territory as its characters are caught up not just in race but also gang conflict.Everyone assumes the bomb that killed Callie Rose's grandmother was the work of a nought terrorist. But Callie Rose knows the truth - and her fear of the past leaves her afraid for her future.Her boyfriend Tobey is worried about his own future. A nought boy at an exclusive school, Tobey hopes to keep out of trouble, go to university, get a good job and leave the dangerous streets of his childhood behind. But Tobey is discovering that he can't keep clinging to some kind of no-man's land while the neighbourhood around him is carved up by rival gangs. Then he is offered the chance to earn some ready money just making a few 'deliveries'. He doesn't want a part of that world, the world of gangs. But maybe he could get away with it, just this once... He little realizes how his decision will bring violence down on both himself and Callie and just how far he will go in fighting back....
Description from Open Library.
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