Worksheet
Level 3
No Place to Hide Alan Battersby
Before reading
1. Look at the front cover. What does the picture
show? Now look at the title. What genre do you
think the story is?
2. Now read the blurb on the back cover. Who do
you think is ‘hiding’? Do you think it is easy or
difficult to hide in a city?
3. Look at the list of characters on page 4. How can
the various people be grouped?
4. Look at the map on page 5. What does it show?
What special places are named?
5. If you have the recording, listen to Chapter 1.
Check your reading
Chapter 1
1. Write short answers to these questions:
a) What season is it?
b) Who is Nat Marley?
c) What is the NYPD?
d) Who is Nat’s personal assistant?
e) Where is Nat’s office?
2. Why is Joyce O’Neill worried?
3. What do you find out about relations between
Patrick O’Neill and Ronald Steinmann?
4. What do you think has happened to Patrick
O’Neill?
Chapter 2
1. What kind of company is Ocean Star Finance?
2. What sort of person is Lorraine Houston?
3. What does Nat find out about Steinmann when
he phones Ocean Star?
4. What was strange about Ocean Star’s promise to
Nat and Stella?
5. What two people did Nat meet in McFadden’s Bar?
Chapter 3
1. True or False?
a) Nat sends Stella to Mrs. O’Neill’s house.
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b) Mrs. O’Neill is upset because her husband
has phoned three times.
c) Nat found several books about poker in a
locked drawer.
d) Mrs. O’Neill didn’t know her husband played
poker.
e) Steinmann and Van Zandt had paid a lot of
money to O’Neill.
2. What did Nat think O’Neill had been doing
when playing poker?
Chapter 4
1. Who said these things to whom?
a) ‘… see if you can find a phone number for
this Van Zandt.’
b) ‘Who are you and what’s your business with
Mr. Steinmann?’
c) ‘Great to hear your voice again!’
d) ‘Please come quickly. I’m so afraid they’ll
come back.’
2. What had happened when Mrs. O’Neill went to
her Henry St. house?
3. What was missing from the house?
4. Where was Mrs. O’Neill going to stay?
5. Why doesn’t she call the NYPD?
Chapter 5
1. Match the beginnings and endings.
1) Frank Van Zandt
2) Nat Marley
3) Oldenberg
4) The police doctor
5) Mrs O’Neill
a) showed Steinmann’s dead body to Nat.
b) agrees to talk to the NYPD.
c) doesn’t want to give Nat any information.
d) said Steinmann had been dead for two or
three days.
e) went to meet Oldenberg at the 79th Street
Boat Basin.
2. Oldenberg thinks O’Neill killed Steinmann.
What facts lead him to believe this?
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Worksheet
Level 3
No Place to Hide Alan Battersby
Chapter 6
1. True or False?
a) Oldenberg interviewed Mrs. O’Neill at Nat’s
office.
b) Steinmann took over Patrick O’Neill’s job.
c) Mrs. O’Neill is unable to phone Patrick.
d) Mrs. O’Neill refuses to let Oldenberg search
her house.
2. Who is Joe Blaney? What does Nat ask him to
bring and why?
3. What do you think Nat and Joe Blaney are going
to do?
Chapter 7
1. What did Nat find out at Frank Van Zandt’s
Cocktail Lounge about the following:
a) how Frank knew Patrick O’Neill?
b) why O’Neill had paid Frank so much money?
c) where O’Neill went on Sunday?
d) an envelope for O’Neill which Frank had?
2. Why is Mrs. O’Neill worried about the police?
Chapter 8
Chapter 10
1. Match the beginnings and endings.
1) Everybody meets
2) O’Neill had hidden
3) Joyce was happy
4) O’Neill explained
5) Oldenberg keeps
a) to see her husband again.
b) O’Neill as his prisoner.
c) in a blanket cupboard when the three men in
dark glasses came in.
d) at Frankie’s Cocktail Lounge.
e) what the papers in the envelope meant.
Chapter 11
1. Put the following events in the correct order:
a) They see a Lexus car with three men in it
drive off.
b) The receptionist tells them three men just
went up to O’Neill’s room.
c) Marley and Blaney start to search the hotels
in East Village.
d) They run to the Metro Hotel.
e) They find Blaney’s car tyres have been cut.
f) They find out O’Neill stayed one night at the
Madigan Inn.
2. What do you think Marley and Blaney will find
in the room?
Chapter 9
1. Who said these things to whom?
a) ‘I guess you ain’t going no place fast.’
b) ‘Back inside the hotel, now!’
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c) ‘Through here … Follow me.’
d) ‘Turn off any lights and lock doors behind us
if you can.’
e) ‘They got to be here someplace … They can’t
have gotten far.’
f ) ‘Am I pleased to see you!’
2. Where did Nat and Joe go after they’d talked to
the police? Who was there?
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1. Which of these things does O’Neill tell
Oldenberg?
a) He thought he would become head of
department.
b) Lorraine Houston became head of
department instead.
c) Most people at Ocean Star liked Steinmann
a lot.
d) Steinmann said he was worried how the
company paid so much money to its clients.
e) Steinmann told him to do his job and not ask
questions.
2. Which of these things is true about Ocean Star?
a) It stole the money to pay its clients so much.
b) It used money from new clients to pay the old
ones.
c) It used money from old clients to pay the new
ones.
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Worksheet
Level 3
No Place to Hide Alan Battersby
3. What did Steinmann do when O’Neill explained
what he had found out?
4. What happened to make O’Neill leave home?
Chapter 12
1. What is Marley’s plan to catch Lorraine
Houston?
2. How does Marley find out at breakfast what
Oldenberg has said about the incident at the
Metro Hotel?
3. At what time does Marley arrange to call
Lorraine Houston the next day?
Chapter 13
1. Put these events in the correct order.
a) Houston arrives at Battery Park and meets
Marley.
b) Houston gets out a gun and says she will kill
Marley if doesn’t give her all the accounts.
c) Marley phones Houston and tells her what
to do.
d) Marley goes to Battery Park.
e) The NYPD catch Houston.
f) Houston shows Marley the money.
g) Marley records Houston saying she killed
Steinmann.
2. What will now happen to O’Neill?
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After reading
Choose some of the following activities:
1. Write a newspaper report about the end of the
case.
2. If you were making a film of the story, who
would you choose to play the main characters –
Marley, Oldenberg, Houston, O’Neill –
and why?
3. Think of another title for No Place to Hide and
explain why it would be good.
4. Write to the author, Alan Battersby, saying what
you liked and didn’t like about the story.
5. Choose one of the characters and write a
paragraph describing his or her appearance and
character.
6. Imagine you are Julia O’Neill. Write the story
from her point of view.
7. Make a quiz about the story for other students,
including some true/false questions and correct/
incorrect sentences.
8. Make a timeline of the story, labelling the main
events on points where they happen.
9. Write the conversation between Patrick and
Joyce O’Neill when he gets home from the police
station.
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