Review: Floors by Patrick Carman

Welcome to the strangest hotel in the world!

There’s no place on earth like the Whippet Hotel. Every floor has its surprises and secrets. Guests are either mad or mysterious. And ducks are everywhere.

If anyone knows the Whippet, it’s Leo, the caretaker’s son. But when he finds four strange boxes that lead him to hidden floors he realises something extraordinary is going on.

As the hotel begins to fall apart, Leo's on the ride of his life, without ever having to step outside.

Walter E. Whippet's dying words to his son Merganzer were: "You will prosper in the field of wacky inventions". Merganzer took this to mean that he should use his inherited billions to create something unique and so he bought an entire Manhattan block, had all the buildings pulled down, and proceeded to build the weirdest, strangest, most unusual hotel in the world... ever! Unusually for Manhattan it was a very small hotel surrounded by grounds vast enough to make a property developer weep at the waste of incredibly expensive space.

Those who did not know better assumed the Whippet Hotel to have only nine floors, topped with a pond on the roof as Merganzer was especially fond of ducks. Not many people choose to stay at the hotel as it is horrendously expensive, and those that do all seem to be rather eccentric in one way or another. The hotel is run by a skeleton staff of Leo Fillmore and his father Clarence (maintenance); Mr Phipps (gardener); Ms Sparks (particularly nasty desk clerk and general manager); Pilar (maid) and her son Remi (newly appointed bellboy). All meals are delivered from a local restaurant so there is no need for kitchen staff. 

Of course, there is also Merganzer Whippet himself, but he has mysteriously gone missing, and as the story starts he has been missing for 100 days, leaving his hotel and his beloved ducks in the care of his staff. On this 100th day, as he is collecting the ducks for walk in the gardens, Leo discovers a box in the duck life with his name on, and so the adventure begins as he has to solve the clues and get to the bottom of the mystery, as the hotel starts to fall apart around him. All the time he is looking over his shoulder, suspecting that there is someone in the hotel, guest or staff member, hellbent on causing chaos through sabotage, possibly with a view to helping the mysterious Bernard Frescobaldi obtain the hotel and its valuable land at a knock-down price.

Floors is a really fun read, and before I knew it I had read it in a single sitting (ahhh... the benefits of the school holidays). I think it is a great book for the 9+ age group, who will love the mystery and suspense, as well as the comedy that runs throughout the story. The various incredible rooms in the hotel will fire up children's imaginations, and have them wishing for their very own Pinball Machine room, Room of Ponds and Caves, or Robot Room. Whilst reading about these I was reminded of the various areas in Willy Wonka's factory, and how much pleasure I got out of reading about them when I was a child. Just like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I think Floors would make a great family film and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some interest Hollywood in the book.

Although I have drawn parallels with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I must also add that I do not think that Patrick Carman's storytelling is quite up to the level of the late, great Roald Dahl. The characters and the hotel are well imagined, but some of the scenes in the bizarre, hidden lacked faultless pace the clarity of description that we get in a Roald Dahl book. However, this one small gripe has not stopped me from looking forward to the next book in what I believe is intended to be a series. The book comes to a satisfying conclusion, but we are given a small handful of hints that there are more adventures to come for Leo and his friends in the Whippet Hotel.

Floors was published by Chicken House at the beginning of January and my thanks go to the publisher for sending me a copy to review.

 

Review: CRYPT: Traitor's Revenge by Andrew Hammond

In York and London, strange shapes are taking form, emerging from the shadows. And who is the man who lies in a pitch-black room, listening to a voice that seems to speak from the darkness itself?

Jud Lester knows that something evil is afoot. He also knows that it can't be investigated by any normal brand of counter-intelligence...

This is a case for CRYPT: a team of elite teenage agents who use their extra sensory perception and arsenal of high-tech gadgets to investigate crimes that the police can't solve.

I loved The Gallows Curse, the first book in Andrew Hammond's CRYPT series, and so it was with no small amount of excitement that I started reading its sequel, Traitor's Revenge. That first book was not perfect, for reasons that I stated in my review, but it was still a hugely entertaining, fast-paced action horror story and I was intrigued to see where Andrew Hammond took his team of teen ghostbusters next. I was not disappointed.

This time around we see Jud Lester and his fellow CRYPT operatives battling supernatural forces in both York and London. Having introduced us to his characters in the first book, Andrew Hammond devotes more of his story to the action and horror elements, an improvement on The Gallows Curse which I felt at times had a little too much information giving, especially with regards to Jud's past. Further character development isn't completely overshadowed by the more frantic or gore-filled scenes, as we find out more about the strained relationship between Jud and his father, as we also continue to see the growing bond between Jud and Bex.

Traitor's Revenge has everything that its predecessor had bar one thing, and that is a superb climax to the story. The ending of The Gallows Curse was brilliant, edge-of-your-seat stuff and much as I enjoyed the sequel, I felt the climactic action scenes didn't pack quite as much punch. This aside, Traitor's Revenge is a very worthy continuation of the CRYPT story. The pacing is as fast as ever and the background to the events in the story makes for a great set-up - Andrew Hammond very cleverly uses a significant event from British history and makes it part of his modern day story. Setting some of the story in York adds something new to the mix, and these scenes are particularly spooky, especially when Bex travels up to the city without any kind of back-up and things begin to spiral out of control. Gore fans will not be disappointed either, as yet again there is enough blood dripping through the pages to keep the splatter addicts happy.

The next book in the CRYPT series, titled Mask of Death, is scheduled to be published in September and yet again I am very much looking forward to reading more about the CRYPT team's adventures in ghostbusting. The blurb on Amazon has me sold on it already:

A figure wearing a white mask swoops down a deserted hospital corridor towards a quarantined patient. Covered in black sores and writhing in agony the patient can't be saved by modern medicine. But then, the masked figure is not a modern doctor...

Bodies are being discovered all over London, all marked with the same black sores - it seems a contagious disease is spreading across the city. But when witnesses all report seeing the same mysterious masked figure it seems there's something more sinister going on.

Review: Black Arts by Prentice and Weil (The Books of Pandomonium Book 1)

Elizabethan London: a teeming city of traders and thieves, courtiers and preachers, riff-raff and quality, cut-throats - and demons. When scrunty Jack the 'Judicious Nipper' picks the wrong pocket at the Globe Theatre, he finds himself mixed up in an altogether more dangerous London than he could have imagined - a city in which magic is real and deadly.

An outbreak of devil-worship has led to a wave of anti-witch fervor whipped up by the Elect, a mysterious group of Puritans recognizable from their red-stained right hands, led by the charismatic Nicholas Webb, a growing power at Court. Rumour has it that he wants to purge the city entirely and build a New Jerusalem. Jack has his own reason for hating him: he saw him kill his mother.

Helped by Beth Sharkwell the Thief Princess of Lambeth, Kit Morely the Intelligencer and Dr Dee the Queen's Wizard, Jack pits himself against Webb's Puritans. But this is no straightforward struggle. Things are not as they seem. In fact, ever since his encounter with Webb, there has been something wrong with Jack's vision. He keeps seeing things. Demons.

March 2012 has to have been one of the greatest months ever as far as the release of totally brilliant children's and YA books is concerned. I stopped announcing my Book of the Month some time ago, but if I was forced to make a decision (and it wasn't for a certain sequel by Will Hill) then Black Arts by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil would be an incredibly strong contender indeed.

I received an early proof copy of Black Arts back before Christmas, courtesy of the lovely people at David Fickling Books, and I the information on the press release simply shouted "Read me now!" and so I dropped everything and did as instructed. That press release mentioned: the setting, London (London is unsurpassed as a setting for magical fantasy/horror in my opinion); in the year 1592 (one of my favourite eras for historical fiction); Satanic atrocities; a shadow world of criminals and fanatics, spies and magicians. I almost felt as if that press release had been directed at me personally, it ticked so many boxes. I was not to be disappointed.

I'm a little bit lost on how to start telling you about this book as there is simply so much I want to say. It is the perfect blend of fantasy, horror and historical fiction, with none of these 'genres' elbowing for dominance over the others. I mentioned this to my friend Liz from My Favourite Books as she had just started reading it, and we agreed that some writers of fantasy/horror set in an actual historical period (as opposed to a fantasy world of their own creation) often get bogged down in trying to ensure that all the historical details are correct, meaning that a great deal of the fun in their story gets forgotten about. The reason for this is the history nerds who seem to take great pleasure in hunting through books like this desperately trying to find some kind of historical inaccuracy. I can't attest to the accuracy of the historical aspect of Black Arts (and frankly I don't care in a story this good), but the writers certainly made it feel very real to me, and yet also managed to ensure that their story was an incredibly rewarding, fun read (some people may think I am a little bit twisted for finding fun in what is such a dark book.... perhaps I am?!) 

Sometimes when reading a book you can tell that the author had great fun writing it, and I have no doubts at all that this was the case with Black Arts. The primary piece of evidence that suggests this to me is the dialogue between the various characters. In a lesser book, the characters might have come across as stereotypes of the traditional Oliver Twist street urchin/crime story, albeit with healthy doses of magic and horror added to the mix, but the quality of the dialogue in Black Arts makes the story stand head and shoulders above its peers. Having met Prentice and Weil at the recent launch of their debut I can now easily imagine the fun they had in writing the dialogue for their richly imagined characters. The characters themselves are perfectly created, especially the villains of the story who are particularly nasty and ruthless (and again, more fun must have been had in the creation of these bad guys - P & W make exceedingly good bad villains).

12+ children who have read all of the Harry Potter books and particularly enjoyed the darker aspects of those books as the story progressed to its final conclusion could do a hell of a lot worse than turn to Black Arts for their latest fix of dark horror. The plot is exciting, and it twists and turns constantly as characters cross and double-cross each other, and with this much mystery and suspense I defy any young person to read this book and find it boring. 

David Fickling and his very small team really know what makes a fantastic children's/YA book. They don't publish many but it seems that everyone that comes out from them is an absolute corker. The impression I am always left with in finishing a David Fickling Book is that David and his team have a passion for great stories, and getting these into the hands of young people. Long may this continue!