Fierce People - Dirk Wittenborn

"Both savage and funny" Sunday Telegraph.

Fifteen -year-old Finn Earl's mother, Liz, is a thirty-two-year-old masseuse with a taste for cocaine. When Liz's habit forces them to flee the city, they find protection under the wing of one of her clients, aging billionaire Mr Osbourne. In Vlyvalle, a golden playground for the super rich, Finn discovers a people who are stranger and more savage than any tribe in the National Geographic. Offered a new life and new friends he falls in love and grows up fast. But, on what should be the happiest night of his life, on an island in the middle of a private lake, naked and high with Osbourne's granddaughter, someone is watching him from the depths of the forest...and laughing.

I read this book in one day, I literally could not put it down! I bought it from a charity shop thinking the back cover looked interesting, but the synopsis (above) does in no way do it justice.
The firece people are a tribe, the Yanomamo studied by Finn's famous anthropologist father, whom he has never met. Wittenborn cleverly draws parallels between the rich in Vlyvalle and this savage tribe. "In the wilds of New Jersey I had found a tribe as strange, cruel and unlovable as the Yanomamo,"comments Finn.
However many of the characters are strangely likable, the village cop, Gates I liked from the start, as does Finn, when on the journey to their new home his mother, withdrawing from drugs, is ill in the car, "It wasn't the words, it was the way he folded up his cop jacket to make a pillow for her head".
I also liked Jilly, Maya, Osbourne and even Bryce, though it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust, who is lying and who is telling the truth. Despite the fact that these rich people buy everyone and everything they need, there are some really likable characters, especially Osbourne who I found an absolute delight.
The book gathers pace and is almost heartstoppingly suspenseful as the reader wonders what will become of Finn's love-life, and who has perpetrated the violent acts described.
The characters are so real that the novel reads like a film and I have since discovered that a film has been made starring Diane Lane as Liz.
The bond between Liz and Finn is incredibly moving and despite their differences they are each others most treasured person. I kept having to remind myself of Finn's age, 15 having his 16th birthday half way through the story, having a son of a similar age myself. It is difficult to remember that the trials and tribulations suffered by this age group can be every bit as devastating and difficult as those suffered by the "grown ups". "It's weird when you're sixteen years old and want to feel young again."
Do yourself a favour and read this book. It's superb.

"Powerful...blows away the hypocrisies of the American dream" Daily Mirror.