Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go & nothing to say; part of the limbo generation of school leavers too old for lessons & too young to know anything about the outside world. He hates & is hated. His family & friends are mean & tough & theyre sure hes going to end up in big trouble. But Billy knows two things about his own world. Hell never work down the mines & he does know about animals. His only companion is his kestrel hawk trained from the nest & like himself trained but not tamed with the will to destroy or to be destroyed. This in not just another book about growing up in the north
- its as real as a slap in the face to those who think that orange juice & comprehensive schools have taken the meanness out of life in the raw working towns.