An Eerie-on-Sea Mystery 1 – Malamander

Thomas Taylor's Malamander is a spooky seaside mystery for 9 year olds about a boy who looks after lost things and a girl who wants to be found.

What happens

It's the first of the Eerie-on-Sea Mysteries. Eerie-on-Sea is lovely in summer, all ice creams and deckchairs. In winter the letters blow off the pier sign and hardly anyone visits. Some locals swear a fish-man creeps about near the old shipwreck.

Herbie Lemon works at the Grand Nautilus Hotel as its Lost-and-Founder. He's twelve-ish (he isn't sure, because he washed up on the beach in a crate of lemons). One snowy night a girl scrambles through his cellar window and begs him to hide her.

Her name is Violet Parma. Twelve years ago she was found as a baby in that very hotel, when her parents vanished. Now she wants Herbie on her side to work out what happened.

Then there's the man chasing her. He's huge and dripping with seaweed, and he has an iron boathook where one hand should be. He smashes an old travel trunk to bits looking for her!

What makes it so good is Herbie's voice. He talks straight to you, grumbling and joking, and insists he only does lost things, not lost people. Of course he gets pulled in anyway. Violet is the one who calls it a case.

The town is a big part of the fun. A bookshop where a mechanical mermonkey chooses your book for you. A hotel owner in a turban who watches the town by moonlight. Mr Mollusc, the manager, who insists on being called sir.

It is creepy, though. The boathook man is genuinely scary, and something with glowing eyes and a tail creeps along the pier at night. Violet's missing parents are a sad part of it, but that happened long before the story starts.

If your reader likes a mystery with a proper shiver and lots of jokes, this is a lovely one for dark winter evenings. Who doesn't love a hotel full of secrets?

What to read next

For another snowy mystery, this time about a girl packed off alone to a hotel in the mountains for Christmas, try Ben Guterson's Winterhouse.