S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access Denied by Jason Rohan

S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access Denied by Jason Rohan
Buy S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access Denied by Jason Rohan at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: Adrenalised hokum, but hokum none the less, as people get kidnapped, super-weapons are under threat – and the country has to rely on three schoolkids who aren't even good friends to put everything back in place.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 256	Date: April 2022
Publisher: Nosy Crow Ltd
ISBN: 978-1839943386
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Arun and Sam have had little to do with Donna, a girl at their school. But things immediately change at the start of this extended sprint of a novel, when she insists Arun's house has become the attention of plain-clothes coppers and that they should bunk off school to find out why. And thus an unlikely trio of misfit young heroes is formed – Sam is really not Donna's idea of company, but he is the computer buff, Donna seems to know all the criminal ins and outs and survival skills, and Arun? Well, it's his lot to find out that all he based his family life on isn't true, and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpected. But how can this disparate trio hope to best MI6, kidnappers, people able to keep the truth about themselves secret for decades, and so much more?

The young reader will enjoy the thriller sheen on this genre read – the passing of the time shown by each quickly-reached chapter title, and so on. But I doubt you have to be an adult to work out there are flaws. The worst-timed round of tea in British security history? Coming up. Adults seeing world-class subterfuge when it's some kids getting lucky? Present and correct. Way out of date and clunky whinges about illegal downloading? Not really a bonus feature, but a feature.

The end result left me thinking of the Children's Film Unit – and how they made worthy-but-not-quite-with-it-enough movies when I was a kid. This feels worthy in that it engages with the young reader who loves the idea of perhaps being a coder and yet wants to run around London, playing hooky and defeating all them pesky adults. It's not nearly with-it enough, in having the kids the only smart ones in many scenes; the way the adults get the wrong impression so often – and how other adults don't try to put them right – really needed justifying. While on that, I felt the way the three were slow to show signs of cohering as a trio didn't give off the ultimate realism, either.

So, is this too flawed to recommend? Well, no – it's a full-on belter of a crime caper, with bonkers levels of action in the key scenes, and I won't be the first to point out that if it's a kid's choice to read this, then it's a choice well made, there being little wrong in a child reading anything, as long as he's actually reading. But yes, I am aware of too many issues to rate this too highly, and the best young thriller reads can easily be enjoyed by all ages. Finally, not changing my marks but of importance to some, will be the fact that two of the three leads are mixed race, and easily able to stamp out any preconceptions about them. Would that their character lived in a world with more realism, then.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

Car-Jacked by Ali Sparkes puts a single kid up against a criminal, and does the joyously unexpected with it. Audiences of both that and this could grow up to love the Cherub series.

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