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Victor Canning

On a night of wild storms, two troubled figures escape from captivity.

 One is a 15-year-old boy, Samuel Miles, a.k.a. ‘Smiler’, wrongly convicted of theft and sent to a young offenders institution. The other is a cheetah, Yarra, a restless resident of Longleat Wildlife Park.

Both are in danger from the outside world – and each other – but somehow their lives become inextricably bound up as they fight for survival on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

 A fast-moving and compassionate adventure story, The Runaways is the first book in Victor Canning's classic children's trilogy.

John Higgins

Duckworth Books

The Smiler Trilogy

The Runaways

Canning's classic children's trilogy continues as fifteen-year-old Smiler, still on the run from the police, hitches a ride to Scotland.

Fifteen-year-old Smiler is still on the run.

Smiler is aiming to evade the police until his father, a ship’s cook, comes home to clear him of a crime he hasn't committed. Hitching a train to Scotland, he finds work as an animal caretaker within the grounds of a castle occupied by ‘the Laird’, Sir Alec Elphinstone.

When the Laird leaves on a trip to London, Smiler discovers that thieves are planning to invade his employer's castle.

Dare he go to the police for help?

Flight of the Grey Goose

Freckled fugitive Smiler is never far from trouble as he makes his way to North Devon in this thrilling finale to The Smiler Trilogy.

After hitching a ride south, Smiler finds his way to North Devon and the estate of the 'The Duchess' – a former fairground fortune-teller who now runs a farm. Here, he stays and tends to circus animals housed for the winter.

When a peregrine falcon, Fria, escapes, Smiler must search for ways of helping and recapturing the bird. In doing so, can he solve the problem that has kept him in hiding for so long?

Or does more trouble await?

The Painted Tent