2012 Book Award Shortlist

‘The Case of the Deadly Desperados’ by Caroline Lawrence

About the book:

When desperados kill a preacher and his wife in a small frontier town, their foster child P.K. is forced to go on the run. P.K. must get a valuable letter to the Recorder’s Office before anyone else can get their hands on it. It’s not easy: Virginia City in 1862 is a glorified mining camp on a barren mountain above a great vein of silver. Seething with miners below ground and hustlers above, it’s a dangerous place, full of gamblers, hurdy girls, saloon-keepers and gunmen, all of them on the make. When twelve year-old P.K. Pinkerton arrives there, homeless, penniless and hunted, things don’t look good. But armed with a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter and a knack for disguises, P.K. takes on the tricksters and desperados who are out to get him and he finds possible allies: Sam Clemens, the new reporter for the paper, a gambler called ‘Poker Face Jace’ who knows how to tell if someone is bluffing, a derringer-packing Soiled Dove, and a Chinese photographer’s apprentice called Ping.Fast, furious and funny, an utterly entertaining mystery adventure from an author who never misses a beat.

About the Author:

Caroline Lawrence was born in London, England. Her American parents returned to the United States shortly afterwards and she grew up in Bakersfield, California with her younger brother and sister. 

After studying at Cambridge, Caroline remained in England, and in 2000 she wrote ‘The Thieves of Ostia‘, the first in a series of children’s adventure stories set in Ancient Rome.
In 2007, the BBC made a glossy children’s TV series based on her Roman Mysteries series of books.