He is a 15-year-old electronics genius. She is his twin sister and a super-talented dancer and singer. Kidnapped by gun-worshippers and pirates for his brilliance, can he escape in time to save her from sex traffickers?
We first meet Lemba as a whiz with cellphones and other gadgets. In his small African village, everyone knows him as the "Fix-it Boy." Josiane is a head turner. Angel-voiced, she dreams of stardom as a singer of Congolese rumba.
Then the Congolese Purification Army raids their village and threatens to return. The "Purifiers" often snatch young children and teens and turn them into child soldiers after making them kill their parents so they won't go AWOL to rejoin Mama and Papa. The best way for the twins to keep their mother and father alive will be to flee to the capital, the maga-city of Kinshasa.
Hired by Pierre's Internet Cafe there, Lemba excels as a precocious internet and drone guy, and Josiane is the star performing attraction. Then two Purifier leaders show up at the cafe as customers, and Pierre brags of Lemba's amazing prowess with both guns and drones.
The gun-worshippers whisk Lemba away. To save his mother, father, and dog from a machete blade, he's forced to fight for the wrong side on both land and sea. He must even become a pirate. Josiane meanwhile faces dangers just as scary as her brother's. Caught in the crosshairs of a sex trafficking lord, she has no one to rescue her and is running out of options.
Can Lemba escape the clutches of the Purifiers - led by a seven-foot tall whack job all too handy with an AK-47 and oversized blades - in time to save Josiane and protect his parents while keeping his humanity?
No Taller than My Gun is a military thriller full of action and adventure and chilling twists and turns that will rivet you. Readers of young adult fiction will find Gun to be compelling and inspirational. But it is not just for YA fans. Older readers also will enjoy the international setting and satisfying ending. Ultimately, Gun turns out to be not just a thriller but a provocative novel of ideas.
Order your copy now and start rooting for a smart, witty, likable hero as he struggles to save his loved ones.
Fact-checked and critiqued by Junior Boweya, a translator, software localization expert, and businessman in Kinshasa. Jean Felix Mwema Ngandu, a former Mandela Fellow and a leading civic activist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also vetted Gun.
