Thunder Road
By (Author) Ted Dawe
Random House New Zealand Ltd
Longacre Press
1st October 2003
New Zealand
Children
Fiction
823.3
Winner of New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards: Best First Book 2004
Paperback
288
Width 128mm, Height 198mm, Spine 21mm
272g
Which street racer really controls the strip An award-winning YA novel full of fast cars, burn-offs and an unwritten code of loyalty. 'Thunder Road' . You find it in any city after the cops are in bed. It's where street racers go to test their machines - and their nerve. For me it was a the steep rising pitch of the turbo, the screaming tyres and curtain of white smoke hanging behind me: all the stuff that spells street racing.' Trace is 19 and has grown out of small-town ways. He's hungry for more. In Auckland he hooks up with Devon, a guy with the Midas touch, who introduces Trace to burn-offs, big city style. Soon everything is smoking. There is a code with drivers: you don't criticise and you don't show fear. When Trace falls for a girl even Devon says is out of his league, loyalties are stretched. Then Devon hits on a scheme for hauling in cash. Soon enough he and Trace find out who really controls the strip. As the underworld closes in, it looks like their friendship is heading for burn-out. Menacing and suspenseful - a gripping novel from a remarkable talent which won the of the NZ Post Children's Book Awards Young Adult Fiction category in 2004.
Ted Dawe stunned readers with his impressive first novel Thunder Road - winner of the Best First Book Award and Senior Fiction category of the coveted New Zealand Post Childrens and Young Adults Book Awards. His subsequent YA novel K Road was published to warm reviews. Into the River won the 2013 New Zealand Post Book of the Year and caused great controversy over its inclusion of sex scenes and swearing. Ted lives in Auckland, New Zealand, where he teaches English to foreign students.