One Kick

By: Chelsea Cain
Location: FIC CAI
Genre: Mystrey- Thriller- Tough Topics!
Series:  Kick Lannigan #1

Some books you wonder if you should have in the library and if you should expose to our students. Writing about child pornography and its impacts is a brave thing for a YF market. But perhaps exposing it for what it is has more power than silencing the beast that it is!


Kick Lannigan is one kick-ass heroine! . Abducted at 6y old and used to make child pornography movies which still circulate on the internet, she was eventually rescued in a police raid six years later. Now at 21, she still suffers from the effects of her time in captivity. Her parents put her into all sorts of therapy but the only thing that worked for her was learning self defence, martial arts and how to shoot a gun with deadly accuracy. Now she lives alone with her old childhood dog, near her best friend James, another person damaged as a child.

Into Kick's life explodes Bishop, a man with a mission, ex-cop now working for a very wealthy private company. Also a man with a horrific event in his childhood. Two children have recently disappeared, known to be abducted and Bishop wants Kick to help him find them. To do this Kick must revisit her past and the man who abducted her.

A gripping rollercoaster of a novel, it deals front on with issues of child sexual abuse, pornography and the effect on victims. The relationship between Bishop and the independent Kick is fasciniating to watch as they each try to protect or outdo the other. This is the first book in a new series from Chelsea Cain and I look forward to the next, hopefully starring her new hero and heroine Bishop and Kick.