Ladies and gentlemen, please turn off your phones and suspend your disbelief on this hook by the door as you enter the crazy, exciting and thoroughly silly world of the fantabulous Andy Mulligan. You will encounter ruthless villains, non-stop danger, at least one near-death experience and a rather jolly lorry driver. Where does all this happen, you ask? In the mountain-top fastness of some evil spy? In the secret laboratory of a crazed wizard? Nope – somewhere way, way more dangerous. Work experience.
| Liquidator by Andy Mulligan | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Linda Lawlor
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| Summary: Funny, scary, hopelessly unlikely and utterly convincing – just go with the flow on this one and you'll be guaranteed a brilliant read. The members of an evil corporation will stop at nothing – absolutely nothing – to sell their new sports drink, and the only people who can stop them are school kids. The odds do not look good... | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 416 | Date: October 2015 |
| Publisher: David Fickling Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9781910200148 | |
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Getting out of school to see what it's like in adult-land (you know, the place saddos who don't know any better call the real world) seems a great idea in principle, but on the whole the result is one big soggy bore, even if by some million-to-one chance you do get your choice of placement and don't end up making coffee and hoovering behind the photocopier for three days. Those twin killjoys, Health and Safety, (yes, of course we know they're useful, really, but this is fiction) insist that you can't touch this, you must never do that, and you're definitely not insured to come within twenty yards of anything mechanical or electrical. (Funny how that doesn't apply to the kettle in the break room, isn't it? Adult double standards once again).
As a teacher Andy Mulligan has seen how rarely the reality of work experience lives up to the hype, so he decided to stir things up a bit in his new book. The kid who wants to be a surgeon gets to wield a scalpel on her first day (just remember, folks, never be ill within a hundred miles of any secondary school) while the one with the lovely voice finds herself working on a song with someone seriously famous (we're not told who, but there's a pretty hefty hint at the beginning). Okay, so it doesn't work out straight away for everyone - being forced to do flower-arranging instead of revamping a shop's website isn't a promising beginning, but it's funny how things turn out.
See, here's the deal. This big bad firm is making barrow-loads of money selling a new sports drink called Liquidator, which is so tasty you can't stop drinking it. It's almost as if it's got something addictive in it... Don't worry, though: they've tested it on a bunch of kids in a country miles away on the other side of the world, and it's only killing one of them so far, so no sweat. Accident-prone Vicky, scalpel-waving Leela and a few of their other friends from school have to get together and save the boy, but the boss of the Liquidator firm isn't going to see all that lovely loot get snatched away from her manicured mitts, even if it means a few more kids have to die, right here in Britain. And you'd need a pretty high-powered crystal ball to predict just how the gang gets rescued. It's totally mad, but it works, and the rage the author and his heroes feel about corporate greed just slips in quietly between the laughs.
It's a brilliant book – don't miss it.
Andy Mulligan specialises in madcap adventure stories with warm centres and a few batty bits. Try The Boy with Two Heads and, better still, Trash, about a boy who survives by sorting through the rubbish at the town dump. How does Mr Mulligan manage to cram his books so full of terrifying adventures, a ton of laughs and the occasional scene so moving it would make a cat cry?
Liquidator by Andy Mulligan is in the Top Ten Books for Teens 2015.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Liquidator by Andy Mulligan at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Liquidator by Andy Mulligan at Amazon.com.
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