Dawn Hawk

Dawn Hawk, Ken Catran, Lothian, 95 pages, paperback, ISBN 0-7344-0468-9

Auckland teenager Hepzibah Rebecca Longfoot is known as Focus because she is focussed on becoming a space shuttle pilot. Her friend Bryce is equally focussed on becoming a writer (of romantic fiction as Brioney Forestvale, of horror as Bryon Groomwald, and of the supernatural as Bruce Graveburg). Suddenly the pair have to focus on staying alive. Ken Catran has concocted a riveting yarn about the search for a valuable concealed sea-plane (the Dawn Hawk of the title) and added some really droll characters. These seem to include two sweet little old ladies, a brash American millionaire, the most boring man in the world, and several people who can only be described as henchmen. As always, in a Catran novel, nobody is quite as they at first seem. Good clean criminal fun, with a rousing conclusion, this story cries out to be filmed.

This review was first published in The Press, Christchurch in 2003.