Skulduggery Pleasant

Derek Landy
Harpercollins, £6.99 (Pbk), Isbn 9780007241620

Skulduggery Pleasant is the debut novel of  Irish playwright Derek Landy, who acccording to his publisher, filled his first novel with all the things he liked best - martial arts, super powers, action, magic, horror, mystery, murder and revenge. With this magnificent mix, Landy has reinvented fantasy, creating an original and memorable read. His secret weapon is humour! Unlike other titles in the genre, this fantasy novel does not take itself too seriously. The central character, Skulduggery, is a wise-cracking, sophisticated, well-dressed magician and detective, who just happens to be a skeleton!  The tagline on the front cover reads ‘And he's the good guy.' Accompanied by his assistant, twelve-year-old Stephanie, Skulduggery Pleasant and his allies must prevent an evil sorcerer from unleashing a weapon of terrible power on the world. Stephanie is a feisty and interesting side-kick, who revels in the adventure. The pace of the action and the sense of danger in this adventure never lets up. Skulduggery Pleasant is great fun, and thankfully the story ends with a definite conclusion. That said I'm already looking forward to reading the sequel!

The London Eye Mystery

Siobhan Dowd 
David Fickling Books, £8.99 (Hbk), Isbn 9780385612661

The London Eye Mystery and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In both stories there is a boy narrator with Asperger's Syndrome, who is trying to solve a perplexing mystery. Unlike Haddon's lead character, Ted's at the "high-functioning" end of the syndrome, and is surrounded by a loving family. When his cousin Salim vanishes into thin air on the London Eye, even the police are baffled. So Ted, whose brain runs on its own unique operating system, teams up with his older sister Kat to solve the riddle. Ted bases his detective work on the premise that how things are depends on how you look at them. Salim's eventual recovery is thanks to Ted's unique, and analytical powers of intelligence. Dowd's prose is simple, yet masterful, and her sense of humour jumps off the page. The tension is kept high throughout the story and the reader is left guessing until the very last as to how Salim escaped from the pod. A must-read for fans of the traditional mystery genre!

Voyager

Jan Mark
Macmillan, £10.99, (HBK), ISBN 0333997743

Two prominent trends for 2006 in age 9-11 books are spy and fantasy adventure themes and interestingly, ‘Voyager', by Jan Mark, combines both strands. The second book of an intended trilogy, Mark's unexpected death earlier this year has decreed that ‘Voyager' and ‘Riding Tycho' must now stand alone. And stand alone they do, in a skilfully and minutely crafted future world. The tale begins with Demetria's escape from her patriarchal, male dominated island, where women are kept in sub-servience and knitting is the only skill that girls are encouraged to develop. Demetria latches onto a log and flees on the current. From that beginning, Demetria is flung into a world of political intrigue and espionage, where she can rely on no-one but herself and her own rapidly changing view of her world. She comes full circle, like the tide, and in the final pages of the book she is heading back to her remote island, to bring hope to a cloistered community and the political prisoners who live there. An unforgettable story and a skilled discourse on the issues of personal and political freedom. Read also: Riding Tycho; Turbulence