Most people are content to accept the direction given, but a recurring theme in the books is Luke Harding's dissatisfaction with the Pairing Committee system. The pairing is generally announced in mid-teens and Pairing takes place at the age of twenty. Adults are paired for life at the direction of the Authorities: partners are selected by local Pairing Committees based on age and aptitudes. At this time they will take up the employment they have been training for. The country is run by the unnamed and generally benign Authorities, who remove children permanently from their parents at the age of five, to be raised in residential schools until they graduate. The Traces universe is explicitly located in a future England, where the decayed and semi-abandoned South is supported and feared by the vibrant, successful North.Įngland is somewhat a benevolent dictatorship, but the dictator is a computer system. All six books, plus a seventh, Murder Club (2013), have since been published by the author on Amazon Kindle. Six books of the series were published between 20 by Kingfisher Books in the UK and by Turtleback Books in the US. The first book, Framed!, has been selected by the United States Board on Books for Young People and the Children's Book Council as an Outstanding International Book for 2006. Traces is a series of novels written by British author Malcolm Rose, about the adventures of Forensic Investigator Luke Harding and his Mobile Aid To Law And Crime, Malc.

The Smoking Gun by Malcolm Rose