This is compelling dystopian fiction set in a future with a divided London in conflict. Within The Strip are a desperate, poverty stricken people under 24 hour government and military surveillance, through drones. They are constantly being bombed by aircraft and missiles. There are many refugees and homeless, with people suffering from PTSD, in catatonic states, and struggling to barely survive. The landscape is one of bombed out homes and ruins. We are given no information as to how this situation arose. Lex is a young 16 year old boy with a father in The Corps, a rebel group endeavouring to fight back against the oppression they face on The Strip and are the highest value targets for the military. The book begins where the father barely escapes a bombing that wipes out the entire leadership of The Corps. Alan is a gifted gamer recruited by the military, his task is to carry out drone surveillance of target K622 who he knows will be killed, its just a question of when. His target is Lex's father. The narrative is delivered through the perspective of Lex and Alan.

Alan is a proud patriot, seeing himself as a soldier, doing a vital job in defending his nation, playing war games, although the job he does involves no risk to him whatsoever. He has never known his father, and feeling a gaping hole in his life because of this. He has a disconnect with his mother who thinks he has blood on his hands because of what he does. As he carries out his surveillance, he begins to connect with the family as human beings, particularly Lex whom he begins to identify with. Lex finds himself in the throes of an intense and all encompassing first love affair with Zoe. Zoe is emotionally damaged by the killing of her father in the bombing of their home. At the same time, Lex finds himself invited to and wanting to play a vital role in The Corps. This puts him under heavy pressure, stress and conflict as he makes decisions that endanger him and his family. Alan is climbing the promotional ladder, celebrating his first kill, and playing a critical role in the bombardment of The Strip when doubts begin to enter his mind. 

William Sutcliffe superimposes on a future London a scenario that is reality in many parts of the world today. For example, we know that gamers have been recruited to perform Alan's role in the US military, finding it easy to kill 'terrorist' enemies, accepting civilian collateral damage, as they have no emotional connection to and have ceased to see them as human. It is much more difficult to kill when you have developed a connection and a person becomes real. Vital issues such as the lack of human rights in The Strip are raised, tragedies are inevitable and the dubious morality behind such flawed government and military strategies emerges. Sutcliffe brillliantly creates and enters the minds of two young males on separate sides of the conflict, making both of them come alive and feel authentic to the reader. He impressively captures the young male psyche, the emotional uncertainties, raging hormones, intimacy issues, the pull of family and the passion of first love, in a thoughtful and beautiful way. A brilliant novel which I highly recommend. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC.

A novel centred on a ravaged, divided London told from the perspective of two quite similar boys (Alex and Lex). It is an interesting premise though truth be told I only made it half way through after trying again and again to pick up and persist with it. The characters are fairly one dimensional, unrelatable and generally uninteresting. I found it immensely difficult to even care about the characters, what happened to them or indeed the world in which they inhabit.

It should get you thinking about surveillance and drone attacks especially given their current deployment by the US… Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me. The lack of backstory is particularly confusing too and as such you have no idea WHY anyone is in the situation you in which compounds the lack of character development.
Also, the significant formatting errors on Kindle made it extremely difficult to read at times and perhaps this impacted upon my enjoyment of the novel. 

As always I’m extremely grateful to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the opportunity to read this novel. I hope others will enjoy it, it’s just not for me I’m afraid.

Such a good book! Perfect amount of action. So well written and development of characters is amazing. A must read!

This is an interesting book with exciting world-building and consistent action throughout; the author certainly knows how to keep you reading. Lex lives on The Strip, so named because it is a closed-off section of London; a London that is watched constantly by Drone surveillance which makes for a thought-provoking read.  Alan, the second character you will come to know, doesn’t live on The Strip. Alan is a Drone pilot. And he is watching his assignment very closely – Lex’s dad. So unfolds a story which will probably leaving you feeling like you’re sat on Big Brother’s sofa and he’s watching you!

What I really liked about this world is that it isn’t too far-fetched to be believable and so it highlights parallels with our world which aren’t too difficult to imagine but it still tests the boundaries enough to make it exciting. There were definitely moments which freaked me out a little in relation to the surveillance aspect! The dual narrative really helps to see all sides of the story and Lex and Alan have interesting enough personalities to keep you reading. Having said this, they are quite similar in terms of narrative voice, which often led me to back track to check whose perspective I was reading from.

The background of the world-building is a little lacking; there were quite a few things I think it would have been nice to know more detail about to make the concept easier to imagine, particularly in terms of how the set-up of the drones and the division of London really developed. But overall, the story moved along at such a good pace with chunks of action throughout that I happily kept reading to find out if Lex and Alan would ever find out about each other!

Sadly, DNF at 21%. The Kindle version has terrible formatting errors...many words are split in half, so a sentence like 'I hoped he wasn't forgetting the meeting' might read as 'I hoped he wasn't forgett ing the meet ing.' Having to constantly stop and figure out what I'd just read threw me out of the story.

Apart from that, the story wasn't gripping me. I didn't know the novel was in dual POV, and there was nothing to say when one ended and another began, so I was surprised to go from running around the Strip to suddenly in a high tech surveillance centre. The lack of backstory was confusing too; who created the Strip, why, how did people get trapped in it? Maybe things were explained later, but I wasn't inclined to stay around.

Not my kind of story, I'm afraid, but I'm sure other people will enjoy it. Thank you very much for the chance to read it, and I hope to read more in the future.

Received a free review copy via netgalley payment being an honest review.  Set in a dystopian divided London, Two characters , one has adhd and is a skilled gamer is recruited to fly observational and then armed drones , the other is the son of a leading "terrorist" on the opposing side. We see both boys struggle with the same challenges of disapproving parents, peer approval and first love. All set against the ethics of the military use of drones. Although the premise of this was interesting , this is a slight book, with characters not very developed and the with a lot of time spent on plot development  at the beginning and then a gallop to the end, so the timeline of the story covers several years in the last few pages, almost as if the author lost interest in his characters, once the climax of the story had been reached. A useful title for fans of Patrick Ness books.

Once again, William Sutcliffe tackles the Israel - Palestine situation, this time imagining that the setting is London, This makes uncomfortable reading being on home ground. There is no attempt to explain how the situation arose, only what is with ordinary people on both sides doing what they have to to survive. There is much heartache and loss in The Strip, the 'prison' that keeps people trapped in a heavily damaged city with a minimum of supplies. This is shown in the lives of Lex and Zoe and their families, and on the outside Alan struggles for acceptance from his mother and his work colleagues as he carries out what he believes to be his patriotic duty.
Despite the grimness of it all, I was drawn into the lives of both Alan and Lex and felt their frustrations and joys and just how awful it must be to live in such a situation.