Nickel Plated

ReviewNickel is a survivor. He has to be. For as long as he may remember, his life has hinged on the flip of a coin. Or, rather, the scribble of a social worker’s pen. He’s been through the system, even had a good dad for a few years, until he was gone, too. But Nickel remembers everything he taught him, and since the day he escaped from foster-care hell, he’s put that cognition to good use. Just twelve years old, he makes a steady living by merchandising marijuana to high schoolers, blackmailing pedophiles he ferrets out online, and working as a private investigator.

When a pretty girl named Arrow hires him to find her little sister Shelby, Nickel figures at best the kid’s a runaway; at worst, a good deal of perv’s gotten a hold of her. He scours the internet and the streets of Arrow’s suburban neighborhood, and what he finds there is as ugly a truth as he’s ever seen. For beyond the manicured lawns, Nickel discovers children for sale, and adults with souls black as the devil. And people like that aren’t in regards to to let some kid ruin their game. This edgy adventure story introduces a canny, precocious anti-hero, the likes of which young-adult readers have never seen.

Gillian Flynn’s debut novel, Sharp Objects, was an Edgar Award finalist and the winner of two of Britain’s Dagger Awards. Her second novel, Dark Places was named one of the Best Books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly. Read her exclusive guest review of Aric Davis’s Nickel Plated:

Every so ofttimes you come throughout a book with a voice like a blast of pure oxygen. Aric Davis has that kind of voice: crackling, assured, energized. With Nickel Plated, he introduces an utterly distinguishable character, 12-year-old Nickel, a former maltreated foster child, current runaway, and future strength to be reckoned with (not that he isn’t already) with a keen brain, sharp sense of humor and hard-boiled self-awareness. Sworn never to return to foster care, Nickel supports himself by dealing pot, blackmailing online pedophiles, and taking on PI jobs, peculiarly anything involving a child in need. When gorgeous Arrow asks him to find her missing little sister, Nickel’s investigation uncovers a nasty corner of the suburbs involved in child trafficking. This is a dark but humane, chilling and once in a while heart-breaking work of noir, a reminder that children are vulnerable but also resilient, tough and resourceful. Davis takes on galore very mature themes but never loses sight of the damaged but determined heart in his young narrator. Here is a reputation who demands a series, from a writer who will shake you wide awake. –Gillian Flynn

Aric Davis: Nickel came from a actually dark time in my life. It sounds foolish in retrospect, but before I worked on Nickel Plated, I invested myself in a dissimilar novel completely, and after it was resoundingly rejected for publication, I thought I was done writing. I actually felt like I’d wrung myself dry. About two months later, which was my longest arid spell without writing in years, three members of my wife’s extended family were murdered by a drunk driver while they were walking on a deserted country road. In addition, a number of other family members and friends were hospitalized. I wanted to kill the driver, and of course, that’s not a rational way of thinking. But I could make a reputation that could injure bad people…

Question: Let’s be honest. Nickel Plated is an edgy book. And you look edgy. Your occupation as a earsplitting artisan even sounds edgy. But for all this “edginess,” Nickel is in truth very tenderhearted. How did you find the right mix of dark and sweet for this novel?

Aric Davis: I wanted an aroused reputation because most protagonists in this style of adult novel-like Richard Stark’s illfamed Parker-are so cold all the time. The emotions running through Nickel have a lot to do with his age, his lack of a family and the terrible things that he’s seen and had done to him. I don’t recognise that a boy his age could be cold and calculating all the time without coming off like a sociopath. As for the edgy side of Nickel, I think that just came with regards to naturally. When you’re working on a novel in the back of a tattoo shop, and have to take breaks to hurt humans before you may get back to writing, you’re going to get a great deal of blood on the keyboard.

Question: What made you determine to write a novel for teens? Did you always think you would be a YA writer?

Aric Davis: Because my mom told me to. Seriously, my mother’s bestloved unpublished manuscript of mine was the only other YA piece that I’ve written, and she’s been bugging me for years to write another one. When I in the long run accepted the idea, I tried to do not forget what I liked best in regards to reading at that age, and I was a Stephen King fiend. It was those memories that made me want to write a novel that wouldn’t talk down to teenagers, surely they can’t all live fairy tale lives, right?

Question: You are a roller-coaster aficionado. What do you love regarding roller coasters? And, if you could only go on one more roller coaster ride for the rest of your life, which roller coaster would you ride?

Aric Davis: I love closely everything in regards to roller coasters. From the architecture, to observing my daughter portion my passion, to just the pure bliss of riding, it’s a love affair that I’ve been carrying on since I was very young. My bestloved coaster right now is Maverick at Cedar Point. As far as I’m concerned, it may do no wrong, but I gleefully expect finding a ride that I get enjoyment from even more, hopefully as soon as next spring.

From Booklist(Starred Review) Nickel is a 12-year-old abuse survivor living all alone in suburban Michigan. He sells marijuana and blackmails Internet pedophiles in order to fund his real profession: clandestine detective, finish with night-vision goggles, camouflage jumpsuits, a getaway bicycle, and a great deal of not-bad jujitsu skills. Most pressing amidst his current caseload is the pro bono mystery of an abducted little girl. She’s probably dead, but Nickel is determined to find out who did it anyway—and it doesn’t hurt that his client, the girl’s older sister, is one heck of a dame (“It was amazing to see her go but nice to watch her leave”). Writing with a deaf ear to what’s fashionable in YA, Davis’ terseness initially comes off like hardboiled spoof and risks alienating readers with it is steadfastly unemotional tone. Almost slyly, though, Nickel’s one-note voice becomes affecting; read among the lines and you’ll find a damaged kid whose defense mechanism is to be a crime-fighting robot. As dark as they get, Nickel’s travails are often laugh-out-loud funny: he’s got his plan, and he’s sticking to it. Readers will, too, right through the pulse-pounding climax and the crushingly offhand sadness of the denouement. Davis hits hard—but with a breathtakingly light touch. — Daniel Kraus

About the AuthorAric Davis is married with one daughter and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he has worked for the past fourteen years as a body piercer. A punk rock aficionado, Davis does anything he may to increase knowingness of a good band. He likes weather cold sufficient to need a sweatshirt but not a coat, and friends who wear their hearts on their sleeves. In addition to reading and writing, he also take pleasure in roller coasters and hockey.

Nickel Plated

Nickel is a survivor. He has to be. For as long as he may remember, his life has hinged on the flip of a coin. Or, rather, the scribble of a social worker’s pen. He’s been through the system, even had a good dad for a few years, until he was gone, too. But Nickel remembers everything he taught him, and since the day he escaped from foster-care hell, he’s put that psychological result of perception learning and reasoning to good use. Just twelve years old, he makes a steady living by retail marijuana to high schoolers, blackmailing pedophiles he ferrets out online, and working as a private investigator. When a finelooking girl named Arrow hires him to find her little sister Shelby, Nickel figures at best the kid’s a runaway; at worst, some perv’s gotten a hold of her. He scours the internet and the streets of Arrow’s suburban neighborhood, and what he finds there is as ugly a truth as he’s ever seen. For beyond the manicured lawns, Nickel discovers children for sale, and adults with souls black as the devil. And persons like that aren’t when it comes to to let some kid destruct their game. This edgy adventure story introduces a canny, precocious anti-hero, the likes of which young-adult readers have never seen.

Did you recognise that over 600,000,000 humans suffer from nickel allergy? Did you recognise that nickel allergy is on the rise?

As allergy to nickel becomes more and more mutual persons are often times left looking for an substitute metal to wear. One metal that is often times proclaimed to be nickel free is sterling silver. But is it in truth safe?

In general, Sterling Silver is 92.5% silver, and 7.5% of “something else”. The immense majority of the time that “something else” is copper. Copper is nickel free and has the right remainder of color, durability and cost to make it the number one choice by raw sterling manufacturers. However… tin, boron, lithium, germanium, zinc, platinum, indium and (to a much lesser extent) nickel may all be found in that 7.5%, too!

Another problem is that the formula for sterling silver is not static; it is always being refined to give it better properties. Want your sterling silver to tarnish a little slower? Add germanium. In fact, here is an example (from a sterling silver formula patent application) of what these exotic sterling alloys might consist of:

92.5% silver, in regards to 0.5% copper, regarding 4.25% zinc, when it comes to 0.02% indium, when it comes to 0.48% tin, regarding 1.25% of a boron-copper alloy containing in regards to 2% boron and with regards to 98% copper, and regarding 1% of a silicon-copper alloy containing regarding 10% silicon and regarding 90% copper.

When you look at the example above you may have noticed the absence of nickel. The good news is that it is very strange for sterling silver to integrate nickel anymore.

In fact, we contacted Kevin Whitmore of Rio Grande Jewelry Supply, one of the biggest and most valued suppliers of raw materials for the jewelry industry. We asked Mr. Whitmore if it was a mutual exercise to see nickel employed in sterling silver production and he said “It would be very strange these days. There has been a flight away from having nickel in sterling silver for a few years now.” He went on to add “In fact, there is in truth no economical gain to using nickel as there are better, and less expensive, materials that may be alloyed in.” Another reason he gave was the ban on nickel in Europe. “Who wants to make jewelry that they can’t trade in sure places?”

As Mr. Whitmore mentioned, Europe has a rigorous ban on nickel. In 1991 Denmark introduced regulation to seriously restrict the use of nickel in jewelry and accessories. It was only a short time before a dramatic drop in nickel allergy was noticed in the population. Due to the success of Denmark’s ban, all of Europe followed suit with similar regulation in 2000. For this reason it makes sense for the makers of sterling silver pellets and sheets (which are purchased as raw material by jewelers) to keep nickel out of the manufacturing procedure of raw sterling silver.

What could be the problem (besides the remote prospect the silver genuinely holds nickel) is that the jewelry piece could be plated with nickel. Sterling silver have a tendancy to wear and tarnish over time. There was a time when it was not not common for manufacturers to plate their pieces with nickel to give it a long lasting shine.

Also, rhodium is most times applied (a fellow member of the platinum group) to plate sterling silver to give it the look of white gold. Unfortunately, rhodium does not stick without apparent effort to silver so another metal is often times used to coat the silver and the rhodium is plated over that “glue” metal. What is a very general metal for that “glue” process? You guessed it, nickel. The problem is that rhodium is reasonably brittle and may form microscopic cracks. Now the underlying nickel may get moist from your skin and leech out nickel salts. All of a sudden you have an allergic reaction to sterling silver, which is in truth the underlying nickel causing the rash.

So what does it all mean?

Since there seems to be no economic gain to using nickel, and since regulation limiting the use of nickel is spreading, you genuinely will have to put sterling silver on your list of safe to wear items. We commend buying goods online at jewelry stores that publicize “nickel free” since they will have to be extra sensible to the subject when sourcing their products. Their rhodium will have to use a “glue” metal other than nickel; their sterling silver must be sourced nickel free. To confuse things even more there are a few dissimilar names applied for sterling silver like:

• Argentium Silver: This silver holds germanium to protest tarnish and must be nickel free.
• Alpaca Silver, German Silver, Paktong and New Silver: These are in truth dissimilar names for Nickel Silver, a silver type that, as the name suggests, will likely incorporate nickel. These types of silver will have to be avoided!

In addition, when shopping, undertake to stay clear from older pieces that may have been formulated when nickel plating was a more mutual exercise and always shop where your “satisfaction is guaranteed or your cash back”!

All metals have the potential to trigger an allergic reaction, even titanium, silver and, on very rare occasions, 24k gold. While nickel is the main culprit in metal allergy, and accounts for as much allergy as all other metals combined, be conscious that humans may be allergic to more than one metal at a time! Patient experimentation is the only solution if you suffer from a metal allergy. Follow the tips in this article and you will soon be living a fashionable, nickel free life!

Nickel Plated Image

Nickel Plated Image

Nickel Plated Photo

Nickel Plated Photo

Most helpful client reviews

11 of 11 humans found the following review helpful.
An fantastically fun read
By ChibiNeko
I have to confess that for reasons of my own, I’ve genuinely been looking forward to reading this book. The premise was interesting & I have to confess that the excerption was finelooking enticing. Nickel is an Artemis Fowl type reputation as far as his intelligence & street savvy go. (Of course there are no supernatural creatures in this book & Nickel isn’t rich like Fowl is.)

6 of 6 persons found the following review helpful.
A kid named Nickel with a heart of gold
By R. Kyle
He’s twelve years old and he’s been on the street for two years after burning down his last foster home with his foster parents in it. We don’t even know his real name, it’s a composite of Nick and Eleanor, the two foster kids he helped to save.

5 of 5 persons found the following review helpful.
You won’t find better than this in any genre
By David Seaman
The subject of maltreated children was what brought Aric Davis’ new novel “Nickel Plated” to the top of the slush pile. It is, after all, the initial annual Child Abuse Awareness month in history but more so it’s a subject regarding which there is far too little written. Not only was this message clear, but it was swaddled by brilliant writing in each possible way. About three to four times in a one hundred year amount of time is a brilliant book written for young adults and this is one of them, taking it is place besides L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle In Time”, Norton’s “The Borrowers” and Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz”. There are arguably few books, if any, that are merely this good. What Aric Davis has done here is not just a literary triumph, but a triumph for children, a triumph for culture and a triumph for each single child who has pulled through to tell a tale similar to this one. Since one out of five children today may be expected to be mistreated before they reach the age of eighteen, the service that Mr. Davis has provided here ought to put him on a short list for the Nobel Peace Prize as well as The Nobel Prize for literature, the Pulitzer and, of course, the Newbury award.

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