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by Mal Peet
As the city of San Juan pulses to summer’s sluggish beat, its teenage soccer prodigy, El Brujito, the Little Magician, vanishes without a trace — right after he misses a penalty kick and loses a big game for his team. Paul Faustino, South America’s top sports reporter, is reluctantly drawn into the mystery of the athlete’s disappearance. As a story of corruption and murder unfolds, Faustino is forced to confront the bitter history of slavery and the power of the occult. A deftly woven mystery flush with soccer and suspense, this gripping novel is a thrilling read not to be missed.
"Fans of Peet's first novel Keeper will note with pleasure the threads that unobtrusively link The Penalty with the earlier book. Cogently constructed and elegantly written, this latest novel is teenage fiction at its best." - The Guardian (UK).
This information about The Penalty was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mal Peet was both an author and illustrator of children's books. About writing, he said, "Like many people (I suspect) I had no real interest in children's literature until I had children of my own. It'll sound a bit evangelical, I suppose, but I truly believe that there are few things more important, useful, and protective than sharing stories with your children. After their bath, heaped into a big, deep chair, doing the voices, discussing the pictures, softening your voice as the rhythm of their breathing deepens... You start to understand why certain books work and others don't."
His first novel for young adults, Keeper, is an enthralling story of a poor and gawky kid who mysteriously becomes the world's greatest goalkeeper - a seamless blend of magical realism and exhilarating ...
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Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
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