Brian Montgomery – författare

Sixteen-year-old Degsy is roughing it on the snowy streets of London with no one for company but Sadface, the three-legged dog he saved from the bins. He’s spent his whole life in and out of jail, rising to power as the gaffer, dealing, cracking skulls, but he always looks after his own and those who can’t look after themselves. He learnt that from Gladys – the little old lady whose life he saved when he was a kid – and from his violent, drug-addicted mum, who showed him exactly what it feels like to be powerless and alone.He was cut from her belly, kicking and screaming, in a prison cell and spent his first four years there in hell. It was tough – he has the scars to prove it – but he has no idea how tough until he finds her diary: The Devil’s Book. Her cheerful boasts of violence, humiliation and torture leave him breathless. Then her evil scrawl gets darker still, and sexual, and just as he is about to discover the full horror of his childhood, he finds that the pages he needs to read are missing.But he must look forward now. He’s determined to keep his nose clean. He can’t go back to prison, not again. He wants to make a better life for himself. And he wants to help others, too: kids in gangs, like he was, the homeless, the elderly, like Gladys – he can’t bear the thought of them getting beaten up or feeling like prisoners in their own homes. He has a vision. He wants to turn an abandoned school and hospital into a housing project for young people – Unit 16-21. It will cost millions of pounds, and he can’t even afford a bag of crisps, but it’s a dream that keeps him warm at night (along with hooch, weed and the pills that the vet gave him for Sadface’s injuries).He wants to change the world … but the world has other ideas. See, he takes on a final job to score a little cash – dumping a scooter for the TWC, a gang with a reputation for violence and connections to a mysterious crime lord with eyes, ears and guns on every corner: MR-K. It turns out the scooter was used to mow down a copper, and members of the TWC take photos of him dumping it. Now he’s just waiting to be arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.And then there’re the kids to worry about: more and more missing kid posters are pasted all over London, and when his mate, Dipper, goes missing, he knows that it’s a problem he can’t ignore.As Degsy searches for the truth about his past, the whereabouts of the missing children and a better way of life, losing the game of cat and mouse with street predators and the police, he is slowly drawn back into a world of trouble that he will be lucky to escape with his life intact. But Degsy’s is a story of transformation and redemption, of strength and hope, of holding onto an impossible dream and watching it become a reality … no matter what the cost.

When Degsy is forced to ask himself just how far he will go to protect his friends, family and the Hay Patrollers, even he is surprised by the explosive answer.For the first time in his life, Degsy Hay is settled. He doesn’t have to worry about which bin his next meal is coming from, which snowy bench he’s gonna sleep on, or who he’ll have to fight to stay alive. Things are going well. His dream of setting up the Hay Patrollers, offering a safe alternative to gang life, has become a reality, and his crew of young people are making the community a better place, patrolling shopping centres, cleaning up the neighbourhood, helping the elderly and disabled. He’s living with his best friends – Winston, Sheila and Mya – getting to know the brother and sister he never knew he had and learning to live without looking over his shoulder. Life is good. Then, one night, his house is torched with him and his friends inside. He barely makes it out of the deadly inferno in one piece, and Winston is even less fortunate. He is alive but left in a coma, and it doesn’t look good. Someone out there has a serious problem with Degsy’s vision for a safer, gang-free London, and they ain’t gonna stop setting fires till Degsy gets the message.As the police search for the arsonist, Degsy and the others try to keep life – and the Hay Patrollers – rolling on as calmly as possible, but life is anything but calm for Degsy when fourteen-year-old Sudanese immigrant Slope rocks up in his life. Slope is violent, aggressive, lost and in need of support – everything Degsy was at that age – and although Mya doesn’t trust Slope, Degsy is determined to help him and sets about finding his estranged big brother – a quest that takes him from London to Australia and back to the UK, where he has set up a café by the coast in Brighton. Slope’s desperate, lonely world is transformed by the reunion, and perhaps he can now start to build a life for himself.Meanwhile, the senior Hay Patrollers are giving talks in school and prisons, sharing their stories with young people, showing how one bad decision can lead to a lifetime of regret. For Sheila, the experience of sharing her story of abuse, teenage prostitution and the death of a friend is too much to bear, leading to tragic consequences. For Mya, reflecting on the drug-dealing murderer she once was, and how she has turned her life around, leads her to search for redemption and forgiveness.With Winston showing no signs of waking up, everyone scared, and the police getting no closer to finding the arsonist, Degsy steps up, scours the streets and tracks down an adversary far more dangerous than he had imagined – the psychotic X and his gang, The Notorious. But X offers Degsy a way out: a robbery. If Degsy can pull it off and bring £5 million back to The Notorious, he and the Hay Patrollers are free to continue their work. Degsy has fought hard to leave his criminal past behind him, and this is the last thing he wants to do, but when X sets fire to Degsy’s homeless project, his brother and sister’s school and leaves Sheila beaten in the street, he is left with no choice. Degsy is lying in wait, preparing to risk the life he has fought so hard to build, seconds from committing robbery, when Slope appears behind him and stops him. Degsy is furious until sirens fill the streets. It was a set up. There was never gonna be a way out; X want to see him serving time, and Mya was right not to trust Slope; he’s been working for The Notorious all along, spying and making sure X hit where it hurt. But Degsy found his brother, reunited his family, and now Slope owes him and stops him from making a big mistake. Furious, Degsy hunts X down, and the bloody battle that follows is fought until they can barely stand. Degsy emerges victorious when he sets fire to X’s kicks and films him begging for mercy. He thinks he’s done enough, but X is determined to have the last word. He locks Degsy and his friends in the community centre and sets fire to it. However, X doesn’t know that the Hay Patrollers have been looking after his nan, and when Degsy and his friends escape the flames, she is left in the burning building. Degsy runs back in and half kills himself saving her, and now the war is finally over. X owes Degsy his nan’s life and backs off for good. The good news continues when Winston comes out of his coma and makes a full recovery. Read about Degsy’s strength and courage as he survives and overcomes the childhood and teenage years that no young person should ever have to experience in Degsy Hay: A Juvenile Redeemed. Available on Amazon.