Anthony Horowitz - Public Enemy Number Two

I had to read a book for my Humanities class for our section on novels and I chose Public Enemy Number Two. I was pleased with my choice as this was an intriguing book. The concept was very original to me but then again, I haven't read that much. It definitely wasn't cliche(I know it's missing an accent) at all.

Without giving too much away, which will be easy considering there are so many plot twists, I will try to give you a good understanding of it. The whole premise of the book is that two cops, Snape and Boyle, want a 13 year old boy, Nick, to go to prison in order to catch the Fence. He will do this by getting close to Johnny Powers, a young crime boss that is ruthless. By doing this the cops think that they will find who buys all of the merchandise being stolen in London, the Fence. Things get interesting when Nick does not agree to go along with their plan. I'll leave it at that as to not give too much away.

The characters are well developed and even the characters that don't show up for long, like Ma Powers, are not just their as filler. They all have separate parts that contribute to the story as a whole in subtle ways. As previously stated, Nick is the main character that is complex and changes a lot over the course of his adventure. His brother, Tim Diamond, is just a clutz in general and stays the same throughout the story. Johnny and his mom are cold hearted even when you just get to believing that they are good people. There are many others but these are the main ones. They all have specific tones that help the story flow well.

This story is full of suspense and it kept me reading even when I wasn't assigned to. That was a surprise to me, the book was much better than I thought it would be. There aren't too many hard words and I don't think younger kids would have any problem reading this. If you can, pick this one up at the library.