Secrets of the Snakestone

Piu DasGupta's Secrets of the Snakestone is an adventure for 11 year olds about a girl whose missing father's locket turns up in a Paris sewer.

What happens

It's 1895. Zélie Dutta works as a maid in a grand house on Rue Morgue. She was sent over from Calcutta to pay off money her dad owed the family. The other servants call her a witch because her eyes are two different colours (one sea grey, one black), and every broken vase or dead canary gets pinned on her.

She's had enough. Her bag is packed and she's planning to stow away on a ship home.

Then, the moment she gets out of the front door, there's a grubby boy called Jules holding a small gold locket. Zélie knows it straight away. It's Baba's, and he always said he'd never be parted from it. Jules found it in the sewer where he works with his dad. And Baba hasn't written to her for two months.

What a heroine she is! Zélie is prickly, brave and very funny. Before every escape attempt she gives herself a pep talk listing her talents (she can peel a banana with her toes and lick her elbow). Jules isn't impressed with her at first, and the two of them bicker like mad.

There's a lot packed in. A circus where Zélie feels safe, with a fire-eater, a performer who spins by her teeth at the top of the tent and a fortune-teller who knows a worrying amount about the locket. A creepy scientific society called the Brotherhood of Blood, whose members mix their blood when someone new joins. And a stone that's said to heal any injury.

It's a real page-turner, with the riddles her dad used to hide in his letters adding a puzzle of their own.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

It has some grimy, grisly moments. Jules has found all sorts in the sewers, including a human torso. The cook scrubs Zélie's mouth out with soap, a circus performer once beat a puppy, and a knife is thrown very close to a little boy's head as a 'joke'. The way the servants treat Zélie for being foreign is ugly too, though the story is firmly on her side.

A more sensitive reader might find some of that uncomfortable. For a confident reader who likes their adventure with a bit of grit and a lot of cheek, it's a treat.

What to read next

If they love a girl hunting through Paris for someone who's stopped writing, The Pear Affair is a great match. Nell's beloved old au pair Pear has gone quiet, and when her parents head to Paris, Nell goes too, determined to find out why.