Runner - Paperback

by Carl Deuker (Author)

When a new job falls his way, Chance jumps at the opportunity, becoming a runner who picks up strange packages on a daily route and delivers them to a shady man at the marina. Chase knows how much he will earn--what he doesn't know is how much he will pay.

Suspenseful, fast-paced, and poignant, this novel avoids easy answers as it examines issues of terrorism and patriotism, fear and courage, and the lives of privilege and poverty.

For a kid desperate to escape poverty, the job seems perfect. But what's really inside the packages he runs?

• A High-Stakes Thriller: Seventeen-year-old Chance is a runner, but this daily route involves more than just exercise--it involves mysterious packages, a shady deal, and dangers he can't comprehend.
• Moral Dilemma: The cash is good, a lifeline for him and his alcoholic father. But when Chance suspects he's a pawn in a much larger, deadlier game, he has to decide how much his integrity is worth.
• Poverty and Privilege: A gritty look at life on the margins, contrasting a teen living on a broken-down sailboat with the seemingly perfect lives of his classmates.
• A Patriotic Question: In a world shaped by terrorism, Chance is forced to confront what patriotism really means and where his loyalties truly lie.

Author Biography

Carl Deuker is a celebrated author of "top flight sports writing matched to uncommonly perceptive coming of age stories" (Kirkus Reviews). He describes his younger self as a classic second stringer: "I was too slow and too short for basketball; I was too small for football, a little too chicken to hang in there against the best fastballs. So, by my senior year the only sport I was still playing was golf." He was a teacher for many years in the Seattle area, where he now lives with his wife. carldeuker.ag sites.net/bio.htm