Martyn Pig is a thriller by Kevin Brooks, published on April 1, 2002 by The Chicken House and aimed at teens and young adults.
The first person narrative tells the story of Martyn Pig, a fourteen-year-old who is faced with a number of difficult decisions after the death of his father.
When his father falls and hits his head Martyn is afraid to call the police because he thinks he will be blamed for the accident.
Some time later he receives a letter from Alex and it appears as if Martyn will finally be able to put the past behind him.
We also meet his friend Alex, a girl who moved into a rented house in his area with her mother two years previously.
Martyn arrives back at the house to find his father spraying shaving foam as a Christmas decoration.
Then abruptly, Martyn says that he never meant to kill his father but was influenced by his love of The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.
We discover that Alex’s mum played the part of Shirley Tucker in a soap opera and was semi-famous.
Next, Martyn talks about the four distinct stages of his father’s drunkenness: Firstly, his dad is all ‘matey’ and gives him money.
That night, Martyn has a nightmare which involves Inspector Morse and his dead father, after which he takes a bath.
He discovers that a woman named Miss Eileen Pig from Australia has bequeathed the money to his dad.
They think of telling a story about Martyn’s father being drunk and not coming home for a few days.
It turns out that Dean has bugged Alex’s bag and listened in to all of their conversations concerning the death of Martyn’s father.
Martyn then begins to collect Dean’s hair and his discarded cigarette butt and puts them into an envelope.
They apply make-up to Martyn’s dad and record snores so that Aunty Jean will be convinced that he’s still alive.
Martyn fantasises about escaping his current life and thinks of being under sunny skies by Christmas Day.
Martyn recalls the time that he once shot a sparrow with an air pistol, which he isn’t proud of.
Even though Martyn is happy to sign cheques to spend some of the money, Alex tells him not to as they are traceable.
Back in the house, he gradually realises that she has betrayed him by taking his dad’s chequebook, cash-card, solicitor’s letters, identification and some of his clothes.
They also reveal that they have found a piece of a face flannel with brake oil on it in Martyn’s bathroom.
In the end, they take Martyn away to the police station early on Christmas morning where he is a given a room for the night.
The only thing he can’t understand is why Alex left the solicitor’s letters and forged signatures at Dean’s flat.
The next morning Breece arrives with WPC Sally Sanders and tells Martyn that they have found his father’s body.
He thinks of a dog he once had called Jacko that his dad had once gotten rid of and this memory enables him to cry easily for anyone watching.
Martyn asks how they knew the location of the body and is told that they got an anonymous phone-call at 3am from a stolen mobile in the voice of a drunken 40-year old male.
Then, one day in the conservatory of Aunty Jean’s house, Breece asks Martyn how well he knew Alexandra Freeman.
The protagonist and narrator of the novel is the eponymous Martyn Pig, a fourteen-year-old boy who lives with his father because his mother left them years ago.
Martyn loves to read thriller novels, murder mysteries and especially the comics of Sherlock Holmes whenever he can.
Alex, a seventeen-year-old girl and Martyn's best friend, is considered beautiful, has long black hair and lives with her mother.
He is described as being a large and unpleasant fellow with oily black hair, a ruddy complexion and bloodshot eyes.