The Suicide Club

Richie is a conflicted, hormonal teenage boy, just about getting his life back on track after a series of misadventures following his parents' trial separation. He's in love with Clare who, along with Matt, Jenny and, eventually, the manic depressive Craig, form part of a clique at their exclusive private school. As they deal with the usual preoccupations of adolescence, their world is turned upside down by the arrival of the charismatic Freddie, a darkly seductive outsider. A shocking incident cements their friendship, and Richie and his friends find themselves committed to a sinister pact with inescapably tragic consequences. With tough, uncompromising prose, Rhys Thomas's first novel is a confronting examination of contemporary teenage life, and a brilliantly-realised portait of a generation's disaffection: truly, a coming of age novel for the twenty-first century.