I made a complete turn around when I decided to read this book by Robert Cormier. It is a psychological thriller, and I can't say I've read many in my lifetime. The first chapter of the book really didn't make much sense to me because it talked about the boy Ben, having a wound where he was shot long ago. Ben lives at a boarding school for boys. He talks about everything changing after the "bridge and bus" incident. I was later to learn that this incident was a bus hijacking where two men, Artkin and Miro who were part of a secret group hijacked a bus full of pre-school age children. The purpose of the hijacking was to uncover the government's secret board called the Inner Delta. Coincidentally Ben's father works for this agency undercover, and Ben and his mother are always under constant watch by body guards and service men. I don't know much more about the Inner Delta. The men who are hijacking the bus must really need this agency to be uncovered. I think they are a political group, because they ask the Us government to free many political prisoners as one of their bargains to let the pre-school kids go.
             I noticed that Robert Cormier uses a lot of different points of view to tell the story. This is a very interesting way of writing. I enjoy it because I get to better understand all sides of the story and I know why certain characters feel the way that they do.
             He uses Ben as the main character, because obviously he has a personal connection to the hijacking. Every so often Ben takes us back to the day of the "bridge and bus" as he calls it and we get to see what actually happened that day as if that is when the story is taking place. Therefore, the author uses a nostalgic form of writing where Ben remembers the events of that day.
             The woman driving the bus has a bladder problem, Miro, the man who is helping hijack the bus is unsure of his true identity, and Ben has problems
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