This is a young adult book, but not too young. The storyline develops as the book progresses. It starts off as a simple quest, young comber, Rej, finds someone dying. Goes off to find food for the dying man, when he returns the man is dead. He vows to find the killer and mete out justice. This turns into a journey Above, a risky place for a Comber. The story is told from Rej's point of view and Donna's, a young Abover. The Abovers are under a dictatorship of a sort, living under strict rules, where ownership of anything, even their own bodies, is looked upon as a sin against The Creator. It is this world that Rej enters, not grasping how it works.
The Combers live like spiders amongst endless tunnels linked by rope networks and slippery rock faces. In the beautiful city overhead live the Abiovers. These two worlds should never meet, but then the body of a murdered Abover appears in the combes. A young Comber, Rej, decides to risk his life and go Above to pick up the mysterious trail of the dead man, which will lead him to something far more sinister.
Action-packed, tense and brilliantly imagined, Basilisk will draw you into a dark and distrubing world.