Alison Allbright hates her life. With no phone, no transport, cut off from the social life of the class, she is lonely and isolated. So when a wealthy lady offers her a chance at a new life as her daughter, Alison jumps at the chance – only to learn that her new life might cost her actual life.

Written in 1979, this story is just as relevant today. In the world of mobiles and facebook today’s teens might even sympathise more with the girl with no phone and no car, and her resulting isolation from her peers who take these things for granted. The wish for someone to swing in and whisk you away into a life of glamour and excitement is a common teen fantasy and the lure is easily understandable.

Alison Allbright herself is an outstanding character – vulnerable and insecure with a veneer of pride and desperate hopes for the future. She can be unlikeable and certainly treats her classmates badly, but seeing the story through her eyes it is easy to understand why she acts as she does. Her character grows over the course of the story. The plot moves swiftly and is easily engrossing, even for readers like me who are rather older than the target agegroup.

There a rather convenient off-screen death towards the end, which I honestly suspected was more likely to be suicide than the accident the story claims, but it doesn’t make it any weaker.

Rating 4: A great teen and YA thriller, and a brilliant exploration of the psychology of abduction.