Award-winning author Melvin Burgess’s thrilling new ghost story for younger readers. David screamed and the ghostly boy opened his mouth and screamed back. But his scream wasn’t the scream of a child—it was the scream of an old, old man. “Come back, come back,” screamed the ghost in his cracked old voice. “Don’t leave me. Don’t go!” Twelve-year-old David lives with his dad in a big old apartment building called Mahogany Villas. When he discovers he can climb through the vent pipes in the building and get into other apartments and play tricks on people, he simply can’t resist. His main victim is Robert Alveston, a forgetful man in his nineties who is afraid that he is losing his mind. But David’s nasty pranks soon disturb more than his elderly neighbor. One day he comes face-to-face with a ghost, at first friendly but more and more terrifying as it becomes clear that he has a particular grudge against Mr Alveston. Soon both the old man and David are in great danger.
Author
Melvin Burgess is a British author of children's fiction. His first book, The Cry of the Wolf, was published in 1990. He gained a certain amount of notoriety in 1996 with the publication of Junk, which was published in the shadow of the film of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, and dealt with the trendy and controversial idea of heroin-addicted teenagers. Junk soon became, at least in Britain, one of the best-known children's books of the decade. Burgess again courted predictable controversy in 2003, with the publication of Doing It, which dealt with underage sex. America created a show based on the book, Life As We Know It. In his other books, such as Bloodtide and The Ghost Behind the Wall, Burgess has dealt with less realist and sometimes fantastic themes. In 2001 Burgess wrote the novelisation of the film Billy Elliot, based on Lee Hall's screenplay. Polyphony is typical for his most famous novels. http://us.macmillan.com/author/melvin...
