Stone Cold is a realistic young-adult novel by Robert Swindells, published by Heinemann in 1993. Set on the streets of London, the first-person narrative switches between Link, a newly-homeless sixteen-year-old adjusting to his situation, and Shelter, an ex-army officer scorned after being dismissed from his job, supposedly on "medical grounds". WorldCat-participating libraries report holding Danish, German, Catalan, Vasc, Slovenian and Korean editions.
Plot
After Link's father abandons his family for a receptionist, Link's mother finds a new boyfriend. Vince, a rather unappealing character, eventually locks Link out of the house and the boy is left to fend for himself. He does initially stay with his older sister Carol, but she has a boyfriend of her own and for reasons that are never specified he cannot turn to his father and so he leaves his hometown of Bradford, Yorkshire and eventually ends up on the streets of London. Life is hard but he learns how to get by from his new friend, Ginger, another homeless man. Meanwhile, elsewhere in London, a former army-officer who calls himself Shelter is fed up with the sight of "dossers" on every street corner which he regards as enemies of his country and devises a plan to get rid of them. Through a mixture of trickery and coercion, either with the promise of food and warmth or fear of the police, he lures them into his house and then uses his skills as a soldier to kill them and hide the evidence. One day he chances upon Link and Ginger and soon afterwards Ginger disappears, tricked into following Shelter after he tells him that Link is at his apartment, badly injured. Distressed by Ginger's absence, Link finds solace in the company of a mysterious young woman named Gail who is new to streets and wants to learn from him. He continues to search for Ginger, not knowing that Shelter has his eye on him too and soon he finds himself in a very dangerous situation. He and Gail learn from another homeless man named Nick that many other homeless peoplehave gone missing, all last seen going off with an old man. Gail and Link keep their eye on Shelter while on the streets. Gail asks many questions, often acting suspiciously, and spends ages in the telephone box, so Link leaves for a couple of minutes and searches for Shelter. Shelter is pulling off an act, pretending to look for his new cat, Sappho, whom he found on the streets and acquired as a sort of 'prop'. Link believes his 'I'm a softie' act and helps him until they find the cat. Shelter invites him inside and Link, forgetting to be suspicious, follows him. Shelter advances on him while they're inside, and Link realises he killed Ginger and all the other homeless people. Shelter nearly suffocates Link, but Gail has called the police, and they take him away. Gail reveals tearfully she is not a real homeless person, but a journalist undercover, wanting to know how it feels to be homeless. She and the newly arrived cameraman depart after giving Link some money. The book ends with Link on the streets on his own again, thinking its ironic that Shelter got locked up for life for multiple murders, yet he gets a roof over his head and three meals a day.
Reception and analysis
The story, set in the late 20th century, is told in chapters that alternate between the perspective of Link, the protagonist and Shelter, antagonist. Shelter's chapters are designated by military-style Daily Routine Orders; Link's are told in a journal- or interview-like fashion. Both characters have aliases by which they prefer to be known and their birth names are not revealed. This and the fact that no perspective other than theirs is ever offered means that they are both unreliable narrators, albeit whilst allowing that Link's side comes across as the more plausible. Swindells won the annual Carnegie Medal recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.
