Catch the Zolt, The Debt Installment 1

by Phillip Gwynne

"Pay the debt or lose a pound of flesh."

275 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2013

About the author

Phillip Gwynne's first novel Deadly Unna? the literary hit of 1998, has now sold over 180,000 copies. It was made into the feature film Australian Rules for which Phillip won an AFI award. The sequel, Nukkin Ya, was published to great acclaim in 2000. He has also written The Worst Team Ever, Born to Bake, and A Chook Called Harry in the Aussie Bites series, and Jetty Rats. Phillip's latest novel, the adult detective thriller The Build Up, is being made into a 13-part TV series on SBS, and his YA novel, Swerve, will be published in 2010.

He now lives in Leura, New South Wales, with his wife and three children: aged 17, 2 and 1

Reviews

[Megan]

Dom Silvagni is a normal 15-year old Australian kid. He goes to school, deals with bullies, has a crush on a girl, and is heavily invested in his track career. But on his 15th birthday weird things start happening. He is followed by a van on one of his runs, he blacks out and wakes up later, with a pain in his hand like a bug sting. And then he finds out the worst part. His great great grandfather left his membership in the mafia in another country. This mafia is so ruthless that they have followed the Silvagni family, exacting a "debt" from each of the eldest born sons in the family, beginning on their 15th birthdays. If Dom doesn't follow through, the secretive organization will take a pound of flesh. This book is the first in the series--his 1st Herculean task is to capture a local bandit.
Positives: It's exciting, quick-paced and very original.
Negatives: There were some leaps in the book--jumps in action, references back to something I didn't remember ever reading about, chunks that seemed to be missing.
I wouldn't recommend it to kids younger than 13.
Fun and intense. No language.

[Jennie]

Definitely for older teens, 14+.

[Cole Langtry]

the awful and horrid humor cant make up for the awful pace and bizzare plot