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The Debt #3
Bring Back Cerberus
Fifteen-year-old Dom Silvagni is cast out of his comfortable life in the Gold Coast's Halcyon Grove when he inherits an ancient family debt to a secret and powerful organisation. He has six Herculean tasks to perform, or he will lose a pound of flesh.
Book three of a high-octane thriller series. Dom has four more Herculean tasks to perform...or lose a pound of flesh. In this installment he has to find a valuable and mysterious piece of technology.
Book three of a high-octane thriller series. Dom has four more Herculean tasks to perform...or lose a pound of flesh. In this installment he has to find a valuable and mysterious piece of technology.
279 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2013
4 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Phillip Gwynne
64 books32 followersPhillip Gwynne's first novel Deadly Unna? the literary hit of 1998, has now sold over 180,000 copies. It was made into the feature film Australian Rules for which Phillip won an AFI award. The sequel, Nukkin Ya, was published to great acclaim in 2000. He has also written The Worst Team Ever, Born to Bake, and A Chook Called Harry in the Aussie Bites series, and Jetty Rats. Phillip's latest novel, the adult detective thriller The Build Up, is being made into a 13-part TV series on SBS, and his YA novel, Swerve, will be published in 2010.
He now lives in Leura, New South Wales, with his wife and three children: aged 17, 2 and 1
He now lives in Leura, New South Wales, with his wife and three children: aged 17, 2 and 1
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 25, 2016
This book was another quick and fun read in the series, full of action and wild situations! This series would be perfect for any kid that "doesn't like to read". The pacing is just so fast that you don't realize how much you are reading.
This time the evil Debt mafia has tasked Dom with finding and stealing a super-secret new technology called Cerberus that is barely a rumor among techies and not even supposed to exist. Dom gets involved with shady private detectives, pickpocket street kids, tough cab drivers with a penchant for showing up in all the right places, and of course, some tough techie nerds with nothing to lose and big mean bodyguards who are not averse to a little kidnapping and torture. It takes all of Dom's ingenuity and running skills to find the Cerberus and deliver it to the Debt before his deadline.
Puzzles, anagrams, clues, and mysteries abound in this book! There's even a Latin phrase that Dom takes to his Latin professor for translation. I love that kind of stuff!
The writing is so hilarious and sarcastic! Dom has some really clever lines that make me laugh.
My favorite supporting characters, Imogen and Tristan, are back in full force, with beautifully awkward teen drama and their own ordinary teenage problems. Dom is so focused on the Debt and his adventures that he needs to be pulled back into the ordinary world of friends and family to keep himself grounded.
The family dynamic is getting tense in this book, as Dom's mother and sister begin to react to Dom's increasingly strange behavior. The whole family is so perfectly written, and every character in that family has their own secrets that I can't wait to uncover in the next books!
Dom continues to be an excellent main character. He's clever and brave, but mostly he's just REAL. He struggles and has stupid moments and makes mistakes and freaks out sometimes. I'm cheering him on in every chapter, and completely wrapped up in his story.
Disclaimer: I received this book from the author/publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.
This time the evil Debt mafia has tasked Dom with finding and stealing a super-secret new technology called Cerberus that is barely a rumor among techies and not even supposed to exist. Dom gets involved with shady private detectives, pickpocket street kids, tough cab drivers with a penchant for showing up in all the right places, and of course, some tough techie nerds with nothing to lose and big mean bodyguards who are not averse to a little kidnapping and torture. It takes all of Dom's ingenuity and running skills to find the Cerberus and deliver it to the Debt before his deadline.
Puzzles, anagrams, clues, and mysteries abound in this book! There's even a Latin phrase that Dom takes to his Latin professor for translation. I love that kind of stuff!
The writing is so hilarious and sarcastic! Dom has some really clever lines that make me laugh.
My favorite supporting characters, Imogen and Tristan, are back in full force, with beautifully awkward teen drama and their own ordinary teenage problems. Dom is so focused on the Debt and his adventures that he needs to be pulled back into the ordinary world of friends and family to keep himself grounded.
The family dynamic is getting tense in this book, as Dom's mother and sister begin to react to Dom's increasingly strange behavior. The whole family is so perfectly written, and every character in that family has their own secrets that I can't wait to uncover in the next books!
Dom continues to be an excellent main character. He's clever and brave, but mostly he's just REAL. He struggles and has stupid moments and makes mistakes and freaks out sometimes. I'm cheering him on in every chapter, and completely wrapped up in his story.
Disclaimer: I received this book from the author/publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.
February 3, 2017
This book was great! My favorite part of the book was at the end where it ended off with a big cliffhanger!
August 16, 2021
If Dominic Silvagni asked the classics prof at his elite, Queensland boys' prep to explain what Cerberus is, he'd have learned that it's the three-headed hell-hound from Greek mythology that Harry Potter knew as Fluffy. But what he actually asks, after receiving a text in Latin, is that his life is being threatened ("Schoolboy, you're dead meat"). But that's literally the least of Dom's problems. He has a chance of making it to the world youth games, if nothing messes up his training as a middle distance runner. But it seems everything is doing just that. The third installment of a debt to a secretive, all-powerful, all-knowing organization known (but not very widely) as The Debt requires him to steal a prototype for a cellphone that doesn't exist yet. A ruthless private eye wants him to do some of his dirty work, and knows just the sort of threats that will make Dom comply. An equally ruthless billionaire scrobbles the kid at gunpoint, for his own troubling ends.
To function under all this pressure, Dom must risk blowing up his running hopes, his school career, his family, his fragile relationship with the girl he loves, and the feelings of the kid down the street who just came out of a coma that Dom feels kinda responsible for. He has to say and do some nasty things, develop an easy conscience with things like lying, hacking and stealing, and learn to act like way more of a jerk than he knows he ought to. The carrot is that if he completes this assignment and three more after it, he'll be free of The Debt. The stick is that if he fails, he'll lose a pound of flesh. Really.
Dom takes bigger risks in this book than in the previous two installments, moving around in a wider range of dangerous spots in the Gold Coast area of Australia, getting caught ditching the unditchable school, making enemies, hurting friends and generally doing some morally questionable stuff for an organization whose agenda he hasn't even begun to understand. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing at home and his shenanigans are at the heart of it. It'll most likely only grow in the books to come, making you wonder whether he hadn't been better off surrendering that pound of flesh at the start. Kind of a teen spy caper with a hero who keeps getting in deeper trouble, it'll leave you wondering what in the south of Queensland will be left standing when Dom's debt is paid.
This is the third installment of "The Debt," a six-book series by the Australian author of several children's books including The Queen with the Wobbly Bottom, and a number of other YA novels such as Jetty Rats and Swerve. Other titles in this series include Catch the Zolt, Turn Off the Lights, Fetch the Treasure Hunter, Yamashita's Gold and Take a Life.
To function under all this pressure, Dom must risk blowing up his running hopes, his school career, his family, his fragile relationship with the girl he loves, and the feelings of the kid down the street who just came out of a coma that Dom feels kinda responsible for. He has to say and do some nasty things, develop an easy conscience with things like lying, hacking and stealing, and learn to act like way more of a jerk than he knows he ought to. The carrot is that if he completes this assignment and three more after it, he'll be free of The Debt. The stick is that if he fails, he'll lose a pound of flesh. Really.
Dom takes bigger risks in this book than in the previous two installments, moving around in a wider range of dangerous spots in the Gold Coast area of Australia, getting caught ditching the unditchable school, making enemies, hurting friends and generally doing some morally questionable stuff for an organization whose agenda he hasn't even begun to understand. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing at home and his shenanigans are at the heart of it. It'll most likely only grow in the books to come, making you wonder whether he hadn't been better off surrendering that pound of flesh at the start. Kind of a teen spy caper with a hero who keeps getting in deeper trouble, it'll leave you wondering what in the south of Queensland will be left standing when Dom's debt is paid.
This is the third installment of "The Debt," a six-book series by the Australian author of several children's books including The Queen with the Wobbly Bottom, and a number of other YA novels such as Jetty Rats and Swerve. Other titles in this series include Catch the Zolt, Turn Off the Lights, Fetch the Treasure Hunter, Yamashita's Gold and Take a Life.
July 22, 2018
My least favorite so far, but necessary to the series.
October 19, 2014
16/20
En bref, un troisième tome toujours aussi palpitant, l'auteur arrive à renouveler son intrigue tout en gardant une trame intéressante et à faire évoluer ses personnages pour qu'on s'attache encore un peu plus à eux. Le contrat pousse encore une fois Dom dans ses retranchements, je suis curieuse de découvrir les 3 qu'il nous reste..
http://www.leslecturesdemylene.com/20...
En bref, un troisième tome toujours aussi palpitant, l'auteur arrive à renouveler son intrigue tout en gardant une trame intéressante et à faire évoluer ses personnages pour qu'on s'attache encore un peu plus à eux. Le contrat pousse encore une fois Dom dans ses retranchements, je suis curieuse de découvrir les 3 qu'il nous reste..
http://www.leslecturesdemylene.com/20...
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March 13, 2014Good
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews