Dead Negative

They stare through the bars; each framed by the cross-patterning of the metal; each its own portrait. Behind, there's the square of a window; the light breaking up the bars like heat. And as you look at the picture, you see all the grids and squares of the composition: how the four guys are boxed and packaged and contained. Elliot's father was a war photographer, renowned for 'shooting the truth'. He died is strange circumstances in Paris. The mystery has never been solved. Jaspreet is Elliot's friend, target of the school bullies. He relies on Elliot's unstinting, loyal friendship. Now these two troubled threads of Elliot's life are drawing inexorably together.

While Nick Manns was growing up, his father was in the RAF. Every two years his family would pack up and move to another RAF base - but one of the things that stayed firm during his childhood were the stories he could fetch from the local library. Even in some remote desert outpost, there was alway a book to transport him to other worlds. He has written stories and poems every since. Formerly a secondary school English teacher, he is now a curriculum coordinator for Leicester College. A published writer of books about teaching, Control-Shift was his debut novel, shortlisted for the North-East Book Award and the Branford Boase Award, longlisted for the Camegie Medal, and nominated for the Stockton Award.