Scared to Death

Paul Rector is in for one Hell of a time in the first entry in a series combining urban menace, ancient horror, and an ongoing quest for good against evil Late one night after a strange journey to Whitechapel in East London, Paul makes a new friend, John Redman--daring and enigmatic, just as Paul longs to be, away from his cloying mother (his only family, so he thinks). Redman immediately charms Paul as well as Jude--a girl they meet on a night on the town. A few days later, Paul learns that Jude has mysteriously died, and Redman has disappeared. Soon after, one of Paul's teacher dies suddenly--frightened to death--near where Jude's body was found. Paul senses that Redman is involved. His new friend is dangerous. But so, we learn, is Paul. In uncovering the truth about Redman he learns shocking facts about himself. There's an evil curse loose in his family and Paul is the latest inheritor. The spree of death--camouflaged as copycat Jack the Ripper-style murders--will continue until Paul confronts the demon in himself head on.

Alan Gibbons' other titles include Charles Darwin and Shadow of the Minotaur, for which he won the Blue Peter Book Award. He has also been short-listed twice each for the Carnegie Medal and the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and has won the Catalyst Award, the Leicester Book of the Year, the Angus Book of the Year, the Stockport Book Award, and the Salford Librarians' Special Award. His books have been published in Japanese, German, Italian, French, Thai, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and other languages.