Dead Straight Line

Author(s): Duffy, Malcolm,
Binding: Paperback,
Date of Publication: 09/04/2026,
Pagination: 320 pages,
Series: N/A,
Imprint: Zephyr,
Published By: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC,
Book Classification: General fiction (Children's / Teenage),
Dimensions: 200 x 131 x 24
ISBN13/EAN/SKU: 9781035919277

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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.