Tom Becker - The Traitors - Book Review

                                         

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic; 1 edition (5 April 2012)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 1407109529
• ISBN-13: 978-1407109527
• It has been quite a long time since I last read the Darkside book 'BlackJack' by Tom Becker. That was, until last year, when his new book dropped through my letterbox. Although, whilst I wanted to read this book straight away, I knew that this wasn't a wise decision as it wasn't due to be published for another 6 months. In my opinion, that is a little bit too early to post a review as readers can become frustrated with the time lapse. However, as soon as it started to get a little bit closer to the publication date I could feel myself being unable to wait any longer. Therefore, I gave into temptation and read it - it was definitely well worth the wait!
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  This book is another dark and deep story. It has a great plot - although if you really thought about all the possible hows and whys then you could find some possible holes.
  The story begins with a moral betrayal - Adam, the main character, kisses the girlfriend of his best friend. From this moment things take an eerie turn. Especially when the radio in his bedroom suddenly springs into life stating "this is the Dial calling". However, when Adam's name is mentioned alongside the word traitor, the story suddenly finds Adam running for his life. 
• • But who can he trust in a world full of traitors...?

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The first aspect I enjoyed about this book was the backdrop that the author created. "The Dial" is a particularly great setting that I was able to visualise with ease. The book is full of the unexpected - lots of timely twists and turns that keep you on your toes. The book hooked me with its many varied characters, some may make comments about the possible stereotypical portrayals. This maybe so, but it works for me. 
• Two particular areas that I wanted to explore within the book were the library - this sounded like an amazing place for discovery. There are opportunities to visit this brilliant place on a number of occasions in the story under the watchful eye of Bookworm the librarian. The other area that I wanted to explore was the sport being played inside "The Dial" called Bucketball. This entails one ball, two teams and two buckets. It takes no prisoners - whilst there might not be many rules, there are certainly plenty of broken bones and scrapes. I will leave the rest to your imagination!
 
This is one of the best books that I've read this year - I loved every minute of it. There's plenty to get you hooked such as the dark atmospheric feel you get, also the dangerous world that is introduced as well as the great character dialogue.  Some of the inspiration was taken from real-life prisoner of war stories from the second world war. Aspects of these are deployed throughout this book which really give it feeling. 
This book has a number of brilliant and awesome moments. Through different discoveries, we peel away another layer and add more to the story. It has a real punch to the end but with a promise of so much more, which I would really love. Buy this book, read this book and then share it with friends.  
You Can Run But You Can't Hide..........