Elliot's father was a war photographer acclaimed for always 'shooting the truth'. He was shot dead by an unknown killer in Paris three years before. Told by Elliot, the story interweaves two threads - Elliot's anger at his mother's efforts to sell his father's photographs, and his friendship with Jaspreet, who comes from a strict Sikh family. Jaspreet's father's belief in upholding the law leads to Jaspreet's persecution at school, beginning with casual racism and name calling, but escalating swiftly to greater violence. When Elliot's mother makes a press announcement that his father's photograph collection will be auctioned, it stirs up unexpected interest from the Bosnian embassy, ostensibly looking for evidence of war criminals. Elliot begins to explore his father's photographs, leading ultimately to clues about his father's death, and a growing awareness of the parallels between Bosnia and other ethnic conflicts...

 

This book is part of a book series called Signature Series .

There are 256 pages in this book. This book was published 2003 by Hachette Children's Group .

While Nick Manns was growing up, his father was in the RAF. Every two years his family would pack up and move to another RAF base - but one of the things that stayed firm during his childhood were the stories he could fetch from the local library. Even in some remote desert outpost, there was alway a book to transport him to other worlds. He has written stories and poems every since. Formerly a secondary school English teacher, he is now a curriculum coordinator for Leicester College. A published writer of books about teaching, Control-Shift was his debut novel, shortlisted for the North-East Book Award and the Branford Boase Award, longlisted for the Camegie Medal, and nominated for the Stockton Award.