Thirteen

Gr 7 Up—In this dark thriller by a first-time British author, a sadistic self-appointed messiah leads his brainwashed cult in murdering boys born on New Year's Day of 2000. Now 2013, only a few remain, including protagonist Adam, who runs, fights, and kills for his life, aided by his love interest and neighbor, Megan. Interspersed with Adam's action-packed running around are various scenes of gruesome murders, torture, and cinematically threatening posturing by the cultist leader, Coron, and his fit teenage disciples. Hoyle removes Coron's mystique fairly early by explaining that the "Master" he serves is merely a "shadowy production, a sort of echo, in Coron's sick mind." He also ends the novel with a list of real-life cults gone bad. Descriptive passages ("Gasoline was spilled carefully, thoughtfully, arteries linking to veins") and well-formed chapters, which almost all end in dramatic single-sentence cliff-hangers, keep this work thrilling, if readers can keep track of the very large cast of dispensable bad guys.