Most Popular Books by Kevin Brooks

Joe is hooked from the moment he sees Candy. What is it that catches his eye? Is it her hair, her smile, or just the way she''s standing? When they chat over coffee there''s an instant attraction - but can love ever be this sweet?

Before the advent of true 3D polygons, video game developers faced a monumental visual challenge: how do you make a completely flat, two-dimensional screen feel like a living, breathing, infinite world? The solution was not a hardware upgrade, but a brilliant hack of human visual perception. By moving different layers of background images at slightly different speeds—a technique known as parallax scrolling—programmers tricked the human eye into perceiving deep spatial depth where none existed. Slower-moving mountains in the back and fast-moving ground in the front created an incredibly immersive illusion of speed and scale. What began as a desperate technical workaround to bypass hardware limitations quickly evolved into the defining aesthetic of the 16-bit golden age. This book unpacks the ingenious mathematics and artistry behind early game rendering. It explores how legendary studios meticulously hand-painted scrolling layers to simulate complex camera movements, and how this specific technical restriction birthed a beloved visual style that modern indie developers are still desperately trying to replicate today. Revisit the visual magic of your childhood through the lens of technical mastery. Understand the exact optical illusions that made classic platformers feel alive, and appreciate the immense engineering required to fake a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional grid.

Kannst du deine Angst besiegen? Elliot hat Angst - vor allem im Leben. Das Einzige, was seine Angst in Schach hält, sind seine Medikamente. Und dann, eines Morgens, sind sie aufgebraucht und alles geht schief: Die ganze Stadt wird von einem Schneesturm lahmgelegt, und Elliots Mutter, die nur kurz zu ihrer Schwester wollte, kommt und kommt nicht wieder. Nicht weit entfernt, wird Elliots Tante Opfer eines Raubüberfalls, und als Elliots Mutter an der Haustür auftaucht, wird auch sie von den Tätern gefesselt und geknebelt. Als seine Mutter nicht auftaucht, bleibt ihm nichts anderes übrig: Er muss nach draußen, in den Schneesturm, um seine Mutter zu suchen. Und gerät selbst in die Fänge der Gangster ... Kevin Brooks'' neuestes Meisterstück: ein Psychothriller, der einen voll innerer Spannung schier zerreißt, ein temporeicher Sprint

Just like old times. Just the five of them. Saturdaynight. Nicole asked. How could Pete say no?But past hurts among the former childhoodfriends soon surface, and the party''s over beforeit ever begins. The group splinters off into thedarkness. Into the noise and heat and chaos ofthe carnival.The next morning, a girl is missing. Pete doesn''tknow what--or who--to believe: Could one of theold gang be to blame? Could one of their ownbe a killer?

Late one night, two brothers learn that their sister has died in the worst way imaginable. She''s found strangled, hundreds of miles from home. Ruben is the smarter of the two, with a gift for getting into other people''s hearts. Cole doesn''t care if he lives or dies. Together they set out to find their own answers and retrace Rachel''s final journey.

With his father dead, Martyn has a choice. Tell the police what happened - and be suspected of murder. Or get rid of the body and get on with the rest of his life. Simple, right? Not quite. One story leads to another. Secrets and lies become darker and crazier. And Martyn is faced with twists and turns that leave him reeling.

En Hale, una pequeña isla de apenas cuatro kilómetros de largo y dos de ancho, ocurre una historia de amor inusual pero conmovedora. Caitlin, una adolescente de 15 años, hija de un escritor viudo y alcohólico, descubre que su apacible vida ha dado un vuelco tras conocer a Lucas, un enigmático joven extranjero que parece venir de ninguna parte. Conforme crecen los sentimientos de Caitlin por Lucas, aumentan también las sospechas sobre él, sobre todo cuando un anciano tropieza a la orilla de la playa con el cuerpo de una chica acuchillada. Este libro ganó el premio de literatura juvenil en Alemania en 2006.

Pale, blubbery Moo silently endures a rain of spite each day. But when he sees a murder, he must take a stand, and choose between truth and lies, weakness and strength...

A boy raised by wild dogs fights for survival in this gripping post apocalyptic tale by an acclaimed Carnegie Medalist. Jeet is a dogchild, raised by the wild dogs who killed his parents, then recaptured and “rehumanized.” He now lives with one of only two remaining human communities in the world, besieged by the much larger enemy clan. In a wasteland shaped by war, starvation, and haunting violence, Jeet grapples with his identity — he misses his wild family, and the people of his clan see dogchilds as less than human. When the human clans begin to prepare for a final, bloody battle against each other, Jeet is at the center. His struggle and his relationship with another rehumanized dogchild shed light on what it means to be human or inhuman — and what it takes to be a survivor. In his most ambitious novel yet, Carnegie Medalist Kevin Brooks offers a breathless work of speculative fiction that will have readers at the edge of their seat.

Before the attack, sixteen-year-old Tom Harvey was just an ordinary boy. But now fragments of a shattered iPhone are embedded in his brain and it''s having an extraordinary effect . . . Because now Tom has powers. The ability to know and see more than he could ever imagine. And with incredible power comes knowledge - and a choice. Seek revenge on the violent gangs that rule his estate and assaulted his friend Lucy, or keep quiet? Tom has control when everything else is out of control. But it''s a dangerous price to pay. And the consequences are terrifying . . .

Magical realism and gritty mystery meet in Brooks''s provocative dissection of family, friendship, and faith. "A tense psychological thriller...hard-hitting."--Publishers WeeklyDawn Bundy lives in a cave. In her head. Where''s she''s been hiding for two years. Hiding behind headphones. From the two hottest girls at school, in their impossibly short skirts and unbearably tight tops, their skin close enough to touch. Not talking to her mother, not about what matters. Not thinking of her dad, the drug addict, the ex-con, born-again but far gone. Two years is a long time. Enough for the cave to grow so small that her breath feels like stone in her throat. Two years is no time at all. Nowhere near enough to forget. To pretend that nothing happened. Deep one perfect morning.

Johnny Delgado is on his first case, but on a council estate as rough as his, he soon finds himself out of his depth and in big trouble. Suggested level: junior secondary.

PI John Craine is struggling to cope with the weight of his past. Sixteen years ago his wife, Stacy, was brutally murdered. Craine found her body in their bed. And since then, to escape the pain and the unanswered questions, he has buried himself in work by day, and whisky by night. But one phone call changes everything. The mother of missing young woman Anna Gerrish calls on his services, and Craine soon finds himself at the centre of a sinister web of corruption and lies that leads back into the murky waters of the past - and to the night that Craine has spent over a decade trying to forget. As he delves deeper and deeper into the case everything gets increasingly, terrifyingly, personal. And it''s down to Craine to stop history from repeating itself ...

Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2009 »Der Tod Ihrer Schwester war ein Versehen«, sagte er nebenhin. »Sie war einfach zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort. So was passiert eben leider manchmal.« Spät eines Nachts erfahren die beiden Brüder Ruben und Cole, dass ihre Schwester Rachel tot ist - sie wurde erwürgt, in einer gottverlassenen Gegend viele Meilen weit weg von ihrem Zuhause in London. Ruben und Cole brechen auf in diese Einöde, um mehr über den Mord und die Ermittlungen herauszubekommen, denn erst wenn der Mörder gefunden ist, kann Rachel beerdigt werden. Insgeheim ahnt Ruben - der Jüngere und Sensiblere der beiden -, dass es für Cole um mehr geht: Cole will Rache. Ruben kennt Coles Impulsivität und weiß, wie rasch sein Bruder zuschlagen kann; er will Cole vor sich selbst schützen. Doch das Dorf in Dartmoor, wo Rachel ihre letzten Tage verbrachte, entpuppt sich als Hexenkessel und den beiden schlägt so viel Hass entgegen, dass auch Ruben machtlos ist gegen den Strudel der Gewalt, in den Cole sich bewusst hineinbegibt. Gewalt erscheint in dieser gesetzesfernen Welt als das einzige Mittel, um herauszufinden, was Rachel wirklich passiert ist, als der einzige Weg, diejenigen dingfest zu machen, die für ihren grausamen Tod verantwortlich sind. Kann dieser Zweck die Mittel heiligen? Was passiert mit denen, die letztlich ähnlich handeln wie ihre Feinde? Verändern gute Motive den Charakter der Tat? So oder so droht die einmal entfesselte Gewalt auch Ruben fürs Leben zu zeichnen ... Kevin Brooks erhielt 2009 für diesen Roman den Deutschen Jugendliteraturpreis - zum zweiten Mal nach 2006 (›Lucas‹).

Sixteen-year-old Linus Weems, a street person since leaving his wealthy father''s home, is kidnapped and taken to an underground bunker where he is soon joined by five others, ranging in age from nine to seventy, who are alternately cared for and tortured by their unseen captor.