Ron Costello

Ron Costello was born and raised in Belmont Hills (the Hill), a working-class area on the edge of Philadelphia. The Hill, nestled between  the Schuylkill River and  the Main Line, is the setting for his Hill Series: Dead Kids Don't Speak, Insomnia, the Visitor, and the upcoming fourth book in the series, Alone in the Fight.

These are not "kids books." They contain adult language and adult situations. In the summer of 1964, the kids who lived in Belmont Hills (the Hill) had no cell phones, laptops, or desktops and didn't play video games. Technology back then was a rotary phone and, if you were lucky, a black-and-white television. For the author and his friends, the Hill was an everyday challenge to be played outdoors and with other kids. Baseball fields, the woods and streams, the river, and backyards provided kids with opportunities not found in 2024.

It's a setting that Costello uses to spin stories with exciting dialogue, tense confrontations, escapes, and last-minute life-saving decisions. The books are unputdownable from the first paragraph to the last.