Product details
- ISBN 9781035919277
- Weight: 228g
- Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 09 Apr 2026
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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‘Razor sharp, fast moving, and impossible to put down... This is Malcolm Duffy at the top of his game.’ – Brian Conaghan, author of Treacle Town
Two unlikely worlds collide as prize-winning Malcolm Duffy explores the life-changing repercussions of a single action in a game gone wrong.
Sixteen-year-old Rory is a rule-breaker, a risk taker, a maverick. As a kick he comes up with a game called Dead Straight Line. The idea is simple – wherever you happen to be, you’ve got to get home in a dead straight line. Across the back gardens of stranger’s houses, locked parks, trespassing on private property – whatever it takes.
One day, Rory pressures his friend Eliot into playing, resulting in a serious accident. Shunned by friends and facing pressure from his furious parents, Rory becomes even more angry and disruptive. When his school suggests helping out a care home, he’s unimpressed. But paired up with Tanker, an eighty-year-old Geordie military veteran, who fought in the Falklands War, things slowly begin to change.
From seeking thrills to finding friends, choosing the right path in life is never a dead straight line. But there is always a way.
** PRAISE FOR DEAD STRAIGHT LINE **
‘[An] empathetic, powerful, important novel for young men, one that should not be missed.’ – Keith Gray, author of Ostrich Boy
‘I'm a sucker for a funny narrator dealing with bleak stuff! Laughed loads and cried for two whole chapters.’ – Patrice Lawrence
‘The best YA novel I have read in the past 10 years.’– Tom Tolkien, The School Reading List
‘[A] Compelling novel for today's teens about taking risks, peer pressure and paying for our mistakes.’ –Tamsin Winter, author of I Dare You
Geordie Malcolm Duffy now lives in Surrey. His debut, Me Mam. Me Dad. Me. was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and alongside Sofa Surfer, Read Between the Lies, and Seven Million Sunflowers has won and been shortlisted for multiple regional awards. All four of his books have been Sunday Times Children's Books of the Week.
X: @malcolmduffyUK | Instagram: @malcolm.duffy | malcolmduffy.com
