Twelve is a chilling chronicle of urban adolescence that already has created an international sensation. Set in Manhattan between Christmas and New Year's Eve, it is the story of White Mike, a seventeen-year-old prep-school dropout turned drug dealer, and his privileged peers who celebrate the holiday in multimillion-dollar co-ops and town houses, partying with drugs, sex, and escalating violence. The generation depicted in Twelve has grown up before its time, with absentee parents who dispense cash in lieu of love, affection, and guidance. To fill in the emotional void, White Mike and his friends prowl for something more exotic, and more dangerous. Hence, a quest for the new designer drug, twelve, which takes this privileged group to the housing projects of Harlem and an encounter with an equally disenfranchised group of teens who set in motion a chain of violence that rapidly spins out of control. From page one, the seventeen-year-old author, whose clarity and skill far exceed his years, sets an icy pace toward an apocalyptic climax.