The Girl in the City by Philip Harris

What an exciting kick-off to this series! And what a cliffhanger!

By night, Leah King scavenges through the backways of her city and the surrounding wastelands for items that her father can trade for food, clothing, and other essentials. After one such foray, she finds herself in the middle of an attack on a young man by the Transport Authority (the city’s governing and enforcement entity.) As he lays dying, the young man pushes the leather bag he’s carrying toward Leah with a whispered “Please …” for her to take it.

Hoping for some good salvage, Leah takes it to her father. But when they open it, they find only one item – a green rectangular object resembling a circuit board encased entirely in clear plastic and marked with strange symbols. An exhausted Leah retreats to her bed, but before she can fall asleep, she overhears her father talking to someone on the phone and leave the house.

Later, when he has still not returned, she slips out to try and find something she can salvage. She is caught stealing from the food wagon of an old Amish man who instead of turning her over to the Transport Authority officials urges her to keep the food and tells her where he can be found while he’s in the city should she get into any trouble.

She returns home to find it being ransacked by Transport Authority and her father, in their custody, being questioned and accused of being a member of TRACE, the terrorist organization currently fighting the Transport Authority. From what she overhears from the Transport Authority leader, Leah surmises they are looking for the strange object she’d gotten earlier.

When everyone leaves, she removes it to her secret hiding place located in the tunnels beneath the city, evading a scarred-faced woman who doggedly tried to follow her as she made her way through the neighborhoods, market, and back alleys to her destination. Desperate to free her father from the Transport Authority, she goes to the temporary lodgings of the old Amish man where she learns the significance and purpose of the strange object.

This introductory story by Philip Harris is an exciting setup for his Leah King series. Though short, a lot of ground is covered in building Leah’s world and the characters that populate it. It is dark and gritty, and filled with shadows, intrigue, and danger starting with Leah running for her life in the very first scene. I’m really looking forward to reading the next book in the series, The Girl in the Wilderness. This book is recommended for those that like young adult post-apocalyptic/dystopian tales.