Stone Cold

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STONE COLD

The book is about Link who is only 17 years old when he is driven from his home by his despicable stepfather. He drifts to London, without a job or friends. He meets Ginger and Gail, who gives him some meaning in life. He doesn´t realize that Gail is a journalist hunting a serial killer who kills the homeless.
The book was easy to get into because of the fact that the author, Robert Swindells, has written a background, which made it easier to understand the story. The author tells some drastic changes that has appeared in the main character‘s life to get the interest of the reader. And it works because the things you find out makes you want to turn another page.
The main character Link is well described and you find sympathy with him, the other characters Ginger, Soldier and Gail aren’t that good pictured, you have to use your imagination a lot here. Sometimes it’s difficult to see how they feel about their own lives and Link.
Links feelings on the other hand are well defined, you really get to be inside his head and share his thoughts. I guess I like the fact that he is completely honest with his feelings and thoughts like when he says “To all intents and purposes you belong to a separate species, and one of the hardest bits is how it cuts you off from girls. If you are a guy, I mean”. I expected that he just wouldn’t care about trivial things like that.
The best part of the book is when Link describes what it is like to sleep in a doorway in wet clothes when it’s January “You’re so cold, so frightened and it hurts so much that you end up praying for the morning even though you’re dog-tired”. I was close to cry when I read this chapter because it shows the homeless life from a perspective you never get to se it from.
“After a bit you start thinking of yourself as a different creature – a creature that lives be side ordinary people but isn’t one of them” Here Link describes what the homeless life does with your self-esteem, after a while you accept that your not worthy of the title “human being”.
Some of his thoughts are so well put that they just have to be quoted, like this “I asked myself how it was possible for a person to be sensitive to the beauty of fine art, and at the same time insensitive to the feelings of a fellow creature”, this tells everything about how ignorant people are concerning the homeless-issue.
Even though Link lives under horrible circumstances he still has his sense of humour, I am very amused by the way he sees himself, the irony is striking. Like when he decides not to let anybody get close, and then falls in love with the first person he meets. “The new Me, the guy who doesn’t let anybody get close and here I am, spilling my guts to the first stranger I meet because she’s got nice hair and laser eyes”
As a novel which describes the relationships between young people in an extremely tough situation, it is great. But this book is supposed to be scary and dramatic and it doesn’t really deliver, because you are so sure that the main character will live and also you know who the murderer is.
The book is well written when it comes to language, dialogue and the sense of actually being there, but the fact that the characters are shaky ( except Link) and the story is predictable makes me find the book mediocre.
In comparison to authors like John Grisham or Harlan Coben, Robert Swindells hasn’t really much to give in the crime novel genre, although I like the...