Ten top errant teenagers in fiction

Danny Denton's new novel is The Earlie King & the Kid in Yellow. One of his ten best bad girls and boys in books, as shared at the Guardian:

Pinkie Brown in Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Pinkie – the delinquent, disapproving, 17-year-old Brighton gangster – is referred to as “the boy”, but his “old eyes” are much feared. While his name and the novel’s title suggest innocence, it takes only a few pages to realise the twist in the symbolism. The boy, it quickly turns out, plays murder games for real. Pinkie’s attitudes to sin and morality are thought-provoking, his refusal to acknowledge his childhood desperately sad.

Read about another entry on the list.

Brighton Rock is among Peter James's six best books and top ten books about Brighton, Lucy Worsley's ten best fictional detectives, Alex Barclay's top ten psychological thrillers, and Linda Grant's five best books with novel approaches to kindness.

--Marshal Zeringue