Rory is sixteen and has proudly created a game called Dead Straight Line. Anyone who wants to join his gang must participate. It involves getting from wherever you start out, to home, in a dead straight line. That means crossing the back gardens of strangers' houses, getting through locked parks, trespassing on private property. It means breaking rules, taking risks and having fun.

But one day Rory persuades Eliot to take part. And Eliot falls and is seriously injured.

There are huge repercussions for both boys. Life will never be the same again and they both have a lot to negotiate.

For Rory, friends drop away, his parents are hurt and furious and home life is under attack. At school Rory is angry and disruptive and when it's suggested that he help out at a care home, he's not impressed.

But he's paired up with an 80-year-old Falklands veteran, and slowly things begin to change.

This is an incredible book. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's real and shocking. How a single event, a single decision can change lives in an instant. And then, how choices need to be made on how to live well in a new future. It's brilliant.