LoveReading4Kids Says
In a Nutshell: Trans-European espionage thriller | Cinematic page-turner following a teenager’s ruthlessly fearless journey into a criminal underworld to find her diplomat dad.
Seventeen-year-old Gwendolyn Bloom has spent much of her life on the move due to her dad’s job as a US diplomat. They now live in New York, where she’s an outcast at the elite school paid for by his employers. But it turns out that the constant moving and snobby school are the lesser evils of her dad’s career. When he vanishes, and it emerges that he’s actually a CIA agent and suspected of working for “another side”, Gwendolyn is forced to search for him herself. Having assumed a new identity, the path of Gwendolyn’s high-stakes quest leads her to the dirty edges of Paris, Berlin, and Prague, where she infiltrates the brutal underworld of “the biggest crime family in Mitteleuropa”.
This is an edgy, twisty, plot-driven thriller with an open-ended conclusion that will leave fans desperate to discover what Gwendolyn does next: she’s already shown that she’s prepared do what it takes - to do anything - to find her father, even if it means committing a few crimes of her own… ~ Joanne Owen
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The Cruelty Synopsis
The Cruelty is an action-packed young adult thriller (optioned for film by Jerry Bruckheimer) about a girl who must train as an assassin to deal with the gangsters who have kidnapped her father.
Gwendolyn's father kept his life a secret from her. When he goes missing, she's plunged into a world of assassins, spies, and criminal masterminds.
When Gwendolyn Bloom's father vanishes, she sets off on a journey she never bargained for. Traveling under a new identity, she uncovers a disturbing truth: to bring her father back alive, she must become every bit as cruel as the men holding him captive.
This suspensful debut from Scott Bergstrom features a strong female character and nonstop, cinematic action.
Praise for The Cruelty: Liam Neeson's 2008 film Taken concerned a spy who engages in mass mayhem while attempting to recover his kidnapped daughter. Bergstrom reverses this plot in his violent, well-crafted first novel. Seventeen-year-old gymnast Gwendolyn Bloom doesn't learn that her father is a genuine spy?and not merely an overworked State Department employee?until after he is kidnapped by international gangsters, and the CIA makes little attempt to recover him . . . A grim, fast- paced tale. --
Publishers Weekly [T]his debut novel is relentlessly paced, full of global sets, slick action...with a grim, ass-kicking antihero. --
Booklist The Cruelty is a nominee for the 2018 Edgar Award for best Young Adult book.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781250144195 |
| Publication date: |
6th February 2018 |
| Author: |
Scott Bergstrom |
| Publisher: |
Square Fish |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
400 pages |
| Series: |
Cruelty |
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Scott Bergstrom Press Reviews
..well-crafted first novel...It's a premise that demands a degree of suspended disbelief, but Bergstrom manages Gwen's transformation from high school student to assassin believably enough, and he doesn't avoid the toll Gwen's actions take on her. Not for the weak of heart, this is a grim, fast-paced tale that stands knee-deep in dead bodies. Publishers Weekly
