Skating Round the Poppy

Packed with suspense and tension and laced with brief, stunning flashbacks, this novel follows 16-year-old Jimmy Crichton, who has fled his home in Dundee to escape his odious father, who has sexually molested him, and his willfully blind-to-it-all mother. Homeless in London, Jimmy is befriended by another runaway, Davey, and learns how to find the best garbage bins for food, and how to ``hang about'' in public buildings to stay warm. Davey teaches Jimmy how to avoid becoming the victim of other street people and the men who prey on young boys. Always cold, always near starvation, the two boys wander the streets, avoiding the shelters, which are unsafe, filthy and crowded with inmates who steal, even kill, for food. These sufferings forge a deep and loving friendship between them. Then Davey, desperate for a way to keep them both alive, makes a secret arrangement with Cooper, an older man who hangs about in Piccadilly Circus near the statue of Eros known to the street people as ``the Poppy.'' Tragedy ensues and Jimmy is accused of murder. Avoiding sensationalism, Irish-born author Power ( Children of the North ) writes with a clarity and eloquence that render his tale a compelling illumination of the lives of abused and lost children. (July)