A fast moving and compassionate contemporary thriller, Smokescreen weaves together several stories to create a brilliant picture of the complex wheeling and dealing that lies about the trafficking of people into the UK. When Ellie’s Dad takes over a failing pub near to the Limehouse Basin in the East End of London, she finds herself caught up in a mysterious Friday night performance in the pub which turns out to be the smokescreen of the title. The story of Ellie’s unraveling of the plots that lie behind is gripping.
This is an electrifying thriller about the highly topical subject of people-smuggling, from one of the UK's leading children's authors. Ellie has been scared of water since her mum drowned, so when her dad decides to move to a pub by a canal in East London, Ellie is afraid. But she soon thinks there's something more disturbing about the pub than just its setting. Something is going on at the weekly music night and Ellie and new friend, Flo are determined to find out what, despite warnings to back off. The music night is clearly a smokescreen for something, but what? Bundled from country to country on a harrowing journey from a tiny Chinese village with the false promise of a better life in England, Song Fang Yin knows the truth. If she can escape her captors, she could help Ellie expose it.
Bernard Ashley lives in Charlton, south east London, only a street or so from where he was born. He was educated at the Roan School, Blackheath and Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, Rochester. After National Service in the RAF Bernard trained to teach at Trent Park College of Education, specializing in Drama. He followed this with an Advanced Diploma at the Cambridge Institute and has recently been awarded honorary Doctorates in Education by the University of Greenwich and in letters by the University of Leicester. During his career as a teacher he worked in Kent, Hertfordshire, Newham and Greenwich, with thirty years of headships in the last three. His debut novel The Trouble with Donovan Croft won the Other Award, the alternative to the Carnegie Medal, and several of his other titles have been highly commended by the Carnegie Medal panel.
