About Running Hot
Winner of he CWA's John Creasey Award
You can order the book from Amazon.co.uk now.
What's the best thing about Hackney?
The bus outta here!
And that's exactly where Elijah "Schoolboy" Campbell needs to be in a week’s time, heading out of London's underworld. He's taking a great offer to leave it all behind and start a new life, but the problem is he's got no spare cash. The possibility of lining his pockets becomes real when he stumbles across a mobile phone. But it's marked property, and the street won't care that he found it by accident. The street won't care that the phone's his last chance to change his life. And he can't give it back because the door to redemption is only open for 7 days.
7 days to exchange the mobile for cash.
7 days to cut the mobile's line rental to the Faces tracking his every move.
7 days to get out of a world where bling, ringtones and petty deaths are accessories of life.
Schoolboy knows that when you’re running hot all it takes is
One call
One voicemail
One text
to disconnect you from this life – permanently. And getting deeper into his old lifestyle may mean that he never catches that bus.
Reviews
A book's 'voice' is what determines its greatness and Mitchell's voice is unmistakably great. This is a great London story.
Lock, stock and a twenty year old mobile phone, at last I know my way around the North London gun belt.
Dreda Say Mitchell is an exciting new voice in urban fiction … her prose has an individually slangily poetic zip
Packed with suspense and fascinating detail about a culture rarely portrayed in fiction…We need more art like this.
Very sharp… an impressive first book with a strong sense of place and community.
Confidently paced tale, told in language both lyrical and salty.
Sharp-eyed, even sharper-tongued chase story…distinctly different, well worth seeking out.
Fast-moving, colourfully written, touching and informative, Running Hot should be the start of a fantastic career.
A fantastic piece of debut writing.
An excellent debut novel…the narrative bustles along at a terrific pace…characters Dickens would relish.
A taut and exhilarating debut…the tempo is rapid-fire from the start…the dialogue is terrific and this is also a very funny novel.
Swaggeringly cool and very funny…maintains a cracking pace.
Has a rhythm unlike anything I've ever read. So perfectly visually described that I felt I was looking at a painting...A mixture of despair and hope, of friendship, betrayal and family loyalty. My kind of book. Mitchell's writing is brilliant.
Pacy, solid read.
Takes urban writing to a whole new level….a gripping read.
Running Hot is unlike any other novel you will have read before.
Fantastic…every young person must read this.