Review by Lesley Finlay
In The Bag by Jim Carrington
Published by Bloomsbury
Jim Carrington follows up his powerful debut Inside My Head with the cracking In The Bag which tells the tale of best friends Joe and Ash who find a bag in the woods filled with £20,000 in cash, a discovery which sets off a terrifying chain of events. What should they do? Spend it? Hand it in? They can’t – they are underage, drunk, and besides, what harm would it to do keep the bag?
Carrington succeeds in getting inside the skin of teenagers – Joe and Ash don’t tell the adults anything, believing they can deal with the increasingly sinister turn of events on their own. Light touches include the shopping trips – the desire of Ash to buy a pair of trainers, balanced against the fear of looking too obviously in the money.
The novel cements Carrington’s skill as a rattling good storyteller; his writing is spare, direct and the device of the dual narrators, keeps the reader hooked. The alarming ending points to the possibility of a sequel. What are you up to Mr Carrington?
A must for older readers.