Kevin M. Brooks (born 30 March 1959) is an English writer. He is best known for

young adult A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

novels. His ''

The Bunker Diary ''The Bunker Diary'' is a 2013 young adult novel by Kevin Brooks (writer), Kevin Brooks. ''The Bunker Diary'' features the story of Linus Weems, a teenager who is captured and imprisoned in a mysterious bunker. The novel won the 2014 Carnegie M ...

'', published by Penguin Books in 2013, won the annual Carnegie Medal as the best new book for children or young adults published in the UK. It was a controversial selection by the British librarians.

Early life, family and education

Brooks was born in

Pinhoe Pinhoe is a former village, manor and ecclesiastical parish, now a suburb on the north eastern outskirts of the City of Exeter in the English county of Devon. The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,108 people resident within Pinhoe Ward, ...

on the outskirts of Exeter in southwest England, the second of three brothers. At age 11, he won a scholarship to

Exeter School Exeter School is an independent co-educational day school for pupils between the ages of 7 and 18 in Exeter, Devon, England. In 2019, there were around 200 pupils in the Junior School and 700 in the Senior School. History The School traces it ...

, where he felt estranged from the other pupils from better-off families and took solace in fiction. He subsequently studied psychology and philosophy at

Aston University Aston University (abbreviated as ''Aston''. for post-nominals) is a public research university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

. His father died when he was 20.

Career

Brooks's

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

'' Martyn Pig'' was published in 2003 by Chicken House, where it was edited by the founder of the company Barry Cunningham, OBE. They won the next

Branford Boase Award The Branford Boase Award is a British literary award presented annually to an outstanding children's or young-adult novel by a first-time writer; "the most promising book for seven year-olds and upwards by a first time novelist." The award is sha ...

"for authors and their editors", which annually recognises an outstanding British novel for young people by a first-time novelist. By a wide margin his work most widely held in

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

libraries is the 2009 novel ''Killing God'' (titled ''Dawn'' in North America). The title character Dawn "contemplates killing God, whom she blames for her father's disappearance". "When Dawn's dad found God, it was the worst time ever. He thought he'd found the answer to everything. But that wasn't the end of it." With ''A Dance of Ghosts'' in 2011, Brooks began a series of adult private detective thrillers set in a fictional English city.

Novels

* '' Martyn Pig'' (Chicken House, 2002) * '' Lucas'' (2002) * ''Kissing the Rain'' (2004) * ''Bloodline'' (2004) * ''I See You'' (2005), by Brooks and Catherine Forde * '' Candy'' (2005) * '' The Road of the Dead'' (2006) * ''Being'' (2007) * ''Black Rabbit Summer'' (2008) * ''Killing God'' (2009); US title, ''Dawn'' * '' iBoy'' (2010) * ''Naked'' (2011) * ''

'' (2013) * ''The Devil's Angel'' (2014) * ''Dumb Chocolate Eyes'' (2015) * ''Five Hundred Miles'' (2016) * ''Born Scared'' (2016) * ''Dogchild'' (2018) * ''See Through Me'' (2019) * ''Bad Castro'' (2020) ;Johnny Delgado series * ''Johnny Delgado: Private Detective'' * ''Like Father, Like Son'' (2006) * ''Private Detective'' (2006) * ''Johnny Delgado: In Father's Steps'' (2008) ;PI John Crane series * ''A Dance of Ghosts'' (2011) * ''Until the Darkness Comes'' (2012) * ''Wrapped in White'' (2013) ;Travis Delaney series * ''The Ultimate Truth'' (2014) * ''The Danger Game'' (2014) * ''The Snake Trap'' (2015)

References

External links

Kevin Brooks
on Myspace *
Kevin Brooks
at publisher Chicken House (archived)
Brooks
at Fantasticfiction.co.uk * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Kevin English children's writers Carnegie Medal in Literature winners Living people 1959 births Alumni of Aston University People educated at Exeter School Writers from Exeter