Photo Finish (Hover Car Racer Series #3) by Matthew Reilly, Pablo Raimondi (Illustrator)

Product Details

Synopsis

Back From the Dead

Jason Chaser's survival of the horrific — and suspicious — crash in theItalian Run was nothing short of a miracle, but it's going to take moremiracles to salvage his budding racing career. Only the top four students at the International Race School will qualify to compete in the New York Masters, the most prestigious race on the pro circuit, and the accident has cost Jason more than precious points in the standings.

It's also undermined his confidence, and Jason's rivals are more thanwilling to take advantage of his weakness to knock him out of therunning. Jason will have to outthink as well as outrace the competitionto get to New York — and the toughest race of his life.

VOYA

It is a given that Jason Chaser and his younger brother, Bug, survive the crash that ended the second installment of the Hover Car trilogy, and the outcome of the third and final book is also fairly obvious. The reader knows that Jason will go on to qualify for the New York Masters and can pretty much guess the outcome of that race. The question remaining is how he will pull it off. As before, Jason deals with sabotage, both to his hovercar and his psyche, as well as cutthroat competitors in a narrative now almost solely plot driven. Supporting characters such as mechanic Sally McDuff, mentor Scott Syracuse, and Jason's parents still put in appearances, but that is all that they do-appear. The focus is almost solely on Jason, the race courses-sometimes described in excruciatingly monotonous detail-and the actual races. Reilly maintains his choppy style, often using one-word sentences for emphasis. Although the fragmented writing would never recommend the book as an example of acceptable sentence structure, it provides expressive momentum for the plot. Fewer illustrations by Raimondi give the text more of an emphasis, but overall the narrative is not more challenging. As with the other two titles, this entry would be a good pick for reluctant readers.

Biography

Matthew Reilly is the international bestselling author of eight novels: The 6 Sacred Stones, 7 Deadly Wonders, Ice Station, Temple, Contest, Area 7, Scarecrow, and the children's book Hover Car Racer, and one novella, Hell Island. His books are published in more than eighteen languages in twenty countries, and he has sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide.

Pablo Raimondi moved to the United States from his native Argentina to pursue his dream of creating comic books. He has worked for both Marvel and DC Comics and has illustrated some of the top comic action figures, including Superman, Batman, and the X-Men. He lives in New York City.