Product Description

An eleven-year-old boy discovers he has strange powers, and a future that holds mystery, adventure -- and death! Bending his knees, Jimmy let go of the windowsill and slowly tipped backwards. Surely this is impossible, he thought, even as he could feel himself doing it. He pushed out with his legs and the thrust sent him flying backwards into the air! Then his fingers locked on to the cold wire of the fence, poised in a perfect handstand on the top. Who are the mysterious men chasing Jimmy across the city? Why are they after him? What are Jimmy's parents keeping from him and who can he trust? And how come he can suddenly do all this really cool stuff!? Find out in this electrifying debut novel from Joe Craig. Young, multitalented and brimming with ideas, this new HarperCollins author is destined to become a firm favourite with children everywhere.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6489 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
Praise for Jimmy Coates: Revenge "Boys love this stuff, and so do girls. Jimmy is a pint-sized verision of Robocop or Terminator! Like Anthony Horowitz's splendid fantasies, [these novels] tap into almost everything a bolshy boy wants and feels. Immensely clever, immediately engaging, they will prepare a child for Orwell and Huxley." Amanda Craig, The Times "Fast-paced and intelligently written." The Bookseller "the sort of book to wow reluctant boy readers away from computer games and into the pages of a book." Books for Keeps "Joe Craig has produced another thrilling page-turner." Jewish Chronicle "A rollicking good spy romp." School House magazine. Praise for Jimmy Coates: Target "With cinematic skill, Craig unrolls a series of action-packed scenes, with a new crisis at every turn of the page. It's gripping, but not mindless" Angela Kilverstein Praise for Jimmy Coates: Killer "!a totally excellent adventure -- a lit bit Bond, a lit bit Matrix and a lot of what you've never read before. Someone make this into a movie!" Flipside "A gripping action-thriller that's packed with twists." Funday Times "The perfect primer to the Bourne series by Robert Ludlum." VOYA

From the Back Cover
Who are the mysterious men chasing Jimmy across the city? Why are they after him? What are Jimmy's parents hiding and who can he trust? And how come he can suddenly do all this really cool stuff?

Jimmy Coates is a boy with a secret and even he doesn't know what it is. But it's a matter of life and death ...

About the Author
Joe studied Philosophy at Cambridge University, graduating in 2002. While there he wrote and performed with the Cambridge Footlights and co-hosted a show on the University radio station. As well as being a writer, he is a songwriter and musician. He has performed as a singer/songwriter at various venues in London, and made a self-produced CD of his pop material. (You can hear the songs through his website.)

Customer Reviews

Thriller for all ages
Jimmy Coates is just sitting at home, minding his own business, when two big men in suits arrive at his house and tell his parents that they've "come for the boy".
So begins a gripping thriller that will inevitably be compared to the Alex Rider series and the Young Bond books. "Jimmy Coates: Killer" will definitely appeal to fans of those books, but if anything, it has an even greater sense of urgency. The mystery is as important as the action, and there is a genuine feeling of danger and paranoia surrounding the wonderfully created central character.
In fact, I was reminded more of Robert Ludlum (of "The Bourne Identity") than Anthony Horowitz, but either way, the book stands up some pretty high calibre comparisons.
It is a very inventive book, and at times it is also very funny, while always propelling the story onwards at a rollicking pace.
This is one that is too good to be left only to children. It's as well constructed and pacy as anything by Matthew Reilly, as gripping as Ludlum, and as inventive as Horowitz.

Jimmy Coates: Killer read!!!
This is a fantastic MUST-READ new classic for all ages. Though it is supposedly targetted at early teens it made me, a grown man, tremble and gasp like a child. It is as tightly plotted an action thriller as you will find coming out of Hollywood, as well as being funny, charming and quintessentially British. I read it in a single day, I couldn't put it down! For anyone a bit sick of wizards and elves, this is a new breed of book for people who like their fiction dark, pacy and satisfying. The Ferrari of crossover fiction. READ IT OR DIE UNHAPPY!

Jimmy Coates - Killer Read!
I recently picked up a copy of this debut kids' book by new author Joe Craig. I love it!! It is, as warned on the cover, 100% compulsive, and I did experience some difficulty putting it down, so gripped was I by Jimmy's adventures, and by Joe Craig's eloquent, witty and often times touching prose. I have a feeling that lots of kids will find their parents sneaking off with their copy - it is that good... So now that Craig has solved my birthday gift conundrum for my young cousins this year, I am now hooked myself, an avid Jimmy Coates fan, already looking forward to his next adventure....