Local Author Seventeen-year-old footballer, Johnny Carbone is a flawed genius. One day kicking goals from the boundary, forty metres out and the next, kicking into the man on the mark when he has the chance to win the game for his team, The Ballantyne Tigers. He has dreams of playing at the top level but can’t ‘get it all together’. Johnny is dogged by a constant nightmare where he follows, and then is hunted himself, by a dark animal he doesn’t recognise. He develops a friendship with an old man, Charlie, who unwittingly provides Johnny with one of the keys to his dream; the nemesis of his sleeping story. Michael Hyde has toiled diligently to tell an Australian story in a compelling and insightful way. Warwick Hadfield, Islane Magazine Books aimed at teenage boys that involve football are not in scarce supply. So anyone venturing onto that wee-worn paddock had better have something new to say. Fortunately, Hyde does, and for the most part says it with style.Mike Shuttleworth, Herald Sun
