The Missing Link (The Missing Link trilogy - book 1) [Paperback]

"Everybody in our town had their own ideas about my step-brother, Danny. Some of them called him disabled, some said he was autistic and some just referred to him as "that poor boy". The truth was that there were only two people who knew what Danny really was. One was his father, who didn't believe it. The other was his mother, who did."

Christie and his step-brother Danny embark on a curious quest to track down Danny's scientist mother in the north of Scotland. En route they meet with Tina, a young homeless girl, and her dog Oggy who has the ability to speak. Together with Darling, a talking bird, they travel through the harsh winter Highlands to the Fourth World: a place that holds as many secrets as it does answers.

Kate Thompson,author of the intense and magical Switchers trilogy, turns her hand to the tricky subject of genetic engineering in The Missing Link, a novel that subtly captures the spirit of its mismatched characters as they travel across the harshest of landscapes in search of some kind of truth. The beautifully observed relationship between Christie and his "disabled" brother holds the story together, driving it forward until the crucial moment when everything begins to fall into place and the slow realisation that there is something more to Danny's condition than meets the eye pulls the reader deeper into the story until the final and shocking twist.

Set somewhere in the not too distant future in a world where fuel is heavily rationed and civil unrest is rife, Thompson touches the tricky subject of genetic engineering with a sense of time, place and emotion that sensitively drives this exceptional novel towards its climax. What remains is a lasting and pertinent impression of a world where nothing is quite as it seems and where human beings, on their eternal quest for improvement, meddle with things that are sometimes best left in peace. Age 10 and over. --Susan Harrison --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The first in a thrilling new trilogy from the author of Switchers

Danny has always believed that his scientist mother is dead. But when a talking dog tells him it isn't true, Danny sets out on a mission to find his mother and her hidden laboratory in Fourth World. But Danny is locked in his own world, so he will need the help of his step-brother Christie, if he is to succeed. After a long and difficult journey the boys discover that Danny's mother is involved in some complex genetic engineering, and she holds the key to Danny's past and his future.

The Missing Link charts the journey of Christie as he travels with his step-brother Danny on a quest to find Danny’s mysterious mother in Fourth World. In this tremendous novel of genetic mystery and adventure, Christie is about to discover some unexpected and amazing truths. For Fourth World holds many secrets, some of terrifying significance . . . Kate Thompson, winner of the Irish Children’s Book of the Year 2002, Bisto Award

Kate Thompson is one of the most exciting authors writing for young people today for she is a born storyteller, highly original and thought provoking in her ideas. She has travelled widely in the USA and India and studied law in London. After living in County Clare, she moved to Kinvara in County Galway and there, three years ago, she discovered her passion for playing the fiddle. She is now an accomplished player and also has a great interest in restoring instruments. Kate is the only author to win the Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Book of the Year award four times – in 2002 for The Beguilers, in 2003 for The Alchemist’s Apprentice, in 2004 for Annan Water and in 2006 for The New Policeman. The New Policeman also won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2005, the Whitbread Book Award Children’s category 2005, the Children's Book of the Year in the Irish Book Awards in March 2006 and has been longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.