East Renfrewshire ~ Book Blog

MacPhail: Nemesis Into the Shadows

Into the Shadows
By Catherine MacPhail

“Nemesis” was a very enjoyable book and it has made me enjoy reading again. The book is about a boy who has no memory and he wakes up in a high flat in the middle of Glasgow. He finds a dying man in the lift and as soon as he steps inside his life changes. As the lift was going the dying man tries to tell him something. His last words are “heartbeat”, “stop” and “four teeth”. As the lift doors open he is met by a girl called Gaby McGurk. She starts screaming as she sees him covered in blood. The boy runs from the flat, only to be followed by a boy called Eddie. He takes him to a boat house. Eddie asked him for his name but he couldn’t remember so he made up the name Ram. The next morning Eddie was gone and Ram was awoken by the smell of burning and he manages to get out and run. He runs to the hills but someone is following him. That person knocked him out stone cold and then trapped him the boot of a car and pushes the car into a reservoir. Ram manages to escape. Meanwhile PC Lewis Ferguson Notices that Gaby recognizes the man in the lift but he can’t get her to say were she had seen him. Ram decides to go and shelter in the near by high school. He is confronted by three thugs who are trying to wreck the school. Ram scares them away though. He then realised that on Monday the school would swarming with people so he decides to hid e in the school loft space. Back at the flats Gaby is speaking to a man who claims to be Ram’s dad. He denies that he is the killer and Gaby believes him. Ram decides to call Gaby and she tells him about his dad. He then follows her and asks her more about his dad. She then puts him up in her auntie Ellen’s flat. That night, Ram hears noises on the landing and sees a dark man standing there with a knife. He then sees PC Lewis Ferguson coming up the stairs. Just as the dark man was about to cut his throat, Ram Jumps out and deflects the blow. They both get away and as Lewis is calling in for back up, Ram starts running again. He passes a nightclub called “Heartbeat”. Ram then sees a poster on the door promoting an underage Valentine disco at Heartbeat on the 14th. It then clicks. The dying man in the lift didn’t say four teeth, he had said fourteenth. But was Ram meant to stop at Heartbeat on the fourteenth? Would he ever find out? And would they ever find the real killer?

I really enjoyed “Nemesis” because at the end of every chapter there was a cliff hanger and even when I thought Ram was now safe he ran into more trouble. The author has also left it open at the end for another book.

By Jack ( St. Ninians High School)