posted on 29 Apr 2024

Bringing Back Kay-Kay by Dev Kothari

What could be more terrifying than the disappearance of a child? This tense story set in India brims with atmosphere as we share the anguish and frustration of a younger sister who is trying her best to make sense of a mystery that is breaking her family apart.

Her much loved brother, fifteen year old Kay-Kay has been away on a school trip with three friends, but has vanished during the night spent on the returning train. The frantic search for clues continues for days to no avail and Lena does her best to comfort her distraught parents. After another visit to the police station where it is suggested that, like many other young people, he might have planned to run away, she decides to do her own investigation.

She contacts the three friends in turn and begins to realise that they might know more about the disappearance than she first thought. There are other troubling clues including a poem that he is written for an unknown person. She finds out that he is a prolific poet and his creative work is peppered through the story to give the reader further insight into his complex personality. She is telling her story to her missing brother and reveals that he is an academically high achieving boy who is popular and kind. But perhaps she doesn’t know him as well as she had thought and that he has many secrets.

Lena proves to be unfazed by dead ends, determined and highly organised in her search. She also reveals that she has been quite jealous of his glowing achievements and personality in the past - she even admits that she ripped up his meticulously planned, colour coded revision timetable. Her patient and careful questioning reveals that there had been some tensions between the four boys. His ‘best’ friend , Samir proves to be particularly unco-operative when she asks him questions so she decides that she has a strong lead.

I was fascinated by this intrepid young protagonist who is determined to find a solution to the mystery and to ease her parents deep distress. She has several scary adventures as she leaves home and then retraces his journey by train but also comes across many interesting and compassionate people serving chai in the stations and some helpful railway staff. Any compelling plot is driven by evocative writing and this is impressive for a debut novel:

‘I looked out of the window at the flat brown landscape split in half by the straight black highway. The scorching summer had squeezed all life out of the land. It cried out for the monsoons, still days away. My thoughts drifted like the wind, hot and dusty. ‘

A love of poetry is central to the solution which is a great message to get across to young readers:

‘ Poetry that runs in our blood, soaks our breath and colours our dreams.’

You need to read how all this poetry and plot eventually plays out for yourselves, so I am not going to spoil it for you. I strongly recommend this unusual novel published by Walker Books. You can get a copy from your local independent bookshop who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have a copy on their shelves.

 

Karen Argent

April 2024