Alexander Gordon Smith

Some people think that writing for kids is easy – short books, no big words, non-existent attention spans and then fill in any gaps with pictures. But nothing could be further from the truth. Children are the harshest critics imaginable. Give a grown-up a copy of Ulysses to read and they'll pretend to like it just so they don't look stupid. Give a copy to a kid and they'll tell you straight up that it's no good. Writing for children is much

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After his failed attempt to escape from Furnace Penitentiary, Alex struggles to survive the bloodstained laboratories beneath where monsters are manufactured, with a death sentence, or worse, hanging over his head.

Alex Sawyer has escaped his underground nightmare to discover that the whole world has become a horrible prison run by his nemesis, Alfred Furnace, and only Alex can stop him, even if that makes him the executioner.

When fourteen-year-old Alex is framed for murder, he becomes an inmate in the Furnace Penitentiary, where brutal inmates and sadistic guards reign, boys who disappear in the middle of the night sometimes return weirdly altered, and escape might just be possible.