by Gregory Hughes
Very violent - at times gruesomely so - the story is set in Japan. Yukio's best friends - the twins Miko and Hiroshi - have committed suicide because they have brought dishonour upon their family by becoming involved (unwillingly) in a Mafia gang. Yukio vows to get revenge and trains hard in his Samurai sword fighting. What starts out as revenge turns into a mad frenzy of cold-blooded murder - of both goodies and baddies. Yukio is slowly being consumed by evil. His young cousin, who he calls the Lump, sees beauty in everything and can sense the badness building in him. She manages to calm him with her simplistic views of the world, and for a while he desists in his evil attacks. Soon the Lump has to return home though, and the evil returns to Yukio. Needless to say, he is soon caught and arrested and committed to a prison hospital for the insane.
I started out not liking the writing - the author has an annoying love of exclamation marks. But it is obvious he loves Japan, its people and its culture (especially Samurai sword fighting!) The last couple of chapters are very moving - everyone that Yukio has known in his life has died and he wonders whether if he had not done some things, they would still be alive now.
Gregory Hughes is also the author of Unhooking the Moon, which won the Booktrust Teenage Prize in 2010.
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