The Whisper
by Bali Rai
This is the second outing for Bali Rai's Crew (Billy, Ellie, Della, Jas and Will). Once again, things are going awry: dealers are being picked up all over town and rumours are rife about who is grassing them up. Billy is mugged, Ellie is picked on at school and Della and Jas are arguing as Jas, reunited with his formerly-estranged cousins, becomes mixed-up with the drug scene and struggles to forge his own identity. Then, when Billy's house is targeted, things begin to get really serious... Credible, hardhitting and couched in the street language for which he is well-known, this will be welcomed by fans of Rai's fiction.
This title has been shortlisted for the 2005 Booktrust Teenage Prize.
Publisher: Corgi
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Bali Rai
Bali Rai was born in 1971 and raised as a working class Punjabi in Leicester. He grew up in a deprived area of Leicester, a city which is almost unique in terms of cultural mix and his style of writing is firmly grounded in the reality that he has seen around him since he was a child. The senior school he attended was about 80% ethnic - 20% white children in terms of ethnic mix.
Bali Rai has been writing short stories and poetry since the age of eight. As a child he made up wild and exciting stories and his imagination has been vivid ever since. At school he excelled at English language and told his teachers that he would one day be a writer.
He left school with eight GCSE’s and English was always his favourite subject. After school he did three a-levels at a local sixth form - none of which was English Literature, which he now regrets. He went on to graduate from Southbank University in London with a 2:1 in politics and since then he has had various jobs in retail, cinema, and telesales and has kept a keen, almost obsessive, interest in current affairs.
Bali Rai
