The White Mercedes

Written by Philip Pullman

Narrated by Colin Moody

A chance meeting with Jenny at an Oxford party leaves seventeen-year-old Chris with hope for a summer romance—and no premonition of trouble. Busy with his job and soon in love with Jenny, whose cheerful surface belies the dark uncertainty of her past, Chris misses all the signs of danger. Before he knows it, he's caught in the sinister web of a criminal whose desire for revenge crushes all those who stand in his way.

"The story line will hook readers and hold them . . . a pageturner that raises some unsettling questions about trust and betrayal and the nature of good and evil."—School Library Journal

"An engrossing, tragic story with rare depth of feeling. . . . Readers won't be able to turn the pages fast enough."—Kirkus Reviews

"Fans of Robert Cormier should appreciate this tense thriller."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Mar 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781441875679

Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman (b. 1946) is one of the world’s most acclaimed children’s authors, his bold, brilliant books having set new parameters for what children’s writing can say and do. He is best known for the His Dark Materials trilogy, installments of which have won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. In 2003, the trilogy came third in the BBC’s Big Read competition to find the nation’s favorite book, and in 2005 he was awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children’s literature. In 2007, Northern Lights became a major Hollywood film, The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Pullman has published nearly twenty books, and when he’s not writing he likes to play the piano (badly), draw, and make things out of wood.

Reviews for The White Mercedes

[heatherlinc · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I just couldn't get into this book. I found the plot slow and the characters uninspiring.

[orangerful · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My first non-Dark Materials Pullman book, which is supposedly going to be made into an indie movie at some point. Originally titled 'The Butterfly Tattoo', this young adult novel is a quick read if a bit predictable. And, randomly enough, the theme of good/evil vs knowledge/innocence that we saw in Dark Materials rears its head sort of out of the blue at the very end.

[jasonlf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“Chris Marshal met the girl he was going to kill on a warm night in early June.” So begins The White Mercedes as its intricate clockwork of minor lies, coincidences, and events propelled from the tangled pre-histories of the protagonists gets set in motion a thrilling story that culminates in the girl, Jenny’s, death. Much of the novel more of a young adult, coming of age love story about a seventeen year old boy who meets a slightly older girl. But when they go and see Romeo and Juliet together the parallels are only too clear and a darker hue falls over the story. One of Pullman’s earlier novels, as standalone work with no elements of the historical novel or fantasy, it is well told, well plotted, and very much worth reading.

[dodau_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this one ages ago and can't remember much about it other than I enjoyed it.

[extrajoker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

first line: "Chris Marshall met the girl he was going to kill on a warm night in early June, when one of the colleges in Oxford was holding its summer ball."alternate title: The White MercedesI recommend The Butterfly Tattoo with the caveat that it is possibly Philip Pullman's darkest novel. (I've read most of them.) Though there are some true horrors in His Dark Materials and other books from Pullman's oeuvre, this brief young adult novel seems to have more than its share of grit, violence, deceit and dysfunction...and not enough hope to balance the scales.Still, it's a really good, powerful book -- gripping from the first page to the last, and filled with great writing and interesting ideas.

[misan7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Through the eyes of late teenage Chris we fall in love with a mysterious experienced and wounded Jenny. Until recently his world was whole and he protected within the walls of a traditional familyhome, but recently he is all alone in chaos since the separation between his parents. Jenny becomes his fix point, and she needs him as well. But life has decided to show more of its dark sides while at it.Innocence's painful and necessary path to growing up? An argument for the fallenness of the world? A greek drama destined for destruction or a rebirth coming from tearing the old system down? A easily read book for both young and old people to recognize themselves in.

[miketroll · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Butterfly Tattoo (previously called The White Mercedes) was Philip Pullman's first novel, directed at the teen market. The story, set in Oxford like Pullman's famous trilogy, His Dark Materials, is pacy, with well drawn and interesting characters.All the same, I found it truncated, rushing too quickly and abruptly to a conclusion. Perhaps the unpublished novelist, or his editor, was too anxious to keep it short and crisp. All the same, a few more twists in the plot, with more variation of pace and an extra 100 pages or so, could have transformed this from a good novel to a memorable one.