The Industry: The Industry Book 1 (Rose Foster, HarperCollins)

Tuesday, 20 March 2012 Unlocked content from the archive. Books+Publishing

Fans of ‘The Hunger Games’ will lap up this debut YA trilogy from young Melbourne author Rose Foster. Kirra Hayward, 16, is her school’s top maths student. When she stumbles upon a mysterious puzzle on the internet and submits the correct answer, she is abducted right off the street, drugged and flown halfway across the world, where she is imprisoned and tortured by an international hit-man who needs her exceptional code-cracking skills. Kirra is now an important part of ‘The Industry’—a thriving global criminal organisation—as one of only a handful of people in the world able to crack the Spencer code. Although it took me a while to get into this book (the first half is all doom and gloom, and the character development is a bit uneven), once the story got going I was hooked. There’s action, violence, intrigue and romance, with two potential love interests for Kirra: Milo, who’s imprisoned alongside her, and Desmond, a highly sought-after Extractor (someone who breaks criminals out of prison for a princely sum), whose dark looks, physical scars, aloofness and intelligence make him seriously crush-worthy for the target audience. Foster’s world isn’t seamless, but she has a pretty good imagination and I was sad when I finished the book. I can’t wait for the next installment!

Hannah Francis is a bookseller at the Younger Sun Bookshop in Yarraville

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Category: Reviews