The Blurred Man

Anthony Horowitz's The Blurred Man is a comic detective story for 9 year olds about a dead man who just won't stay out of sight.

What happens

This is the fourth book about the Diamond brothers. Fourteen-year-old Nick shares a flat and an office with Tim, his older brother and quite possibly the worst private detective in London. It's half-term and Tim has seven pence left in the bank.

Then a very drunk American called Joe Carter walks into the office (on his third attempt at the door). He writes crime novels and has given two million dollars to a children's charity called Dream Time.

The man behind Dream Time was Lenny Smile. He and Carter wrote to each other for years and never met. Now Lenny has been run over by a steamroller, and he was buried the day before Carter landed at Heathrow. Carter is sure something isn't right, and he pays Tim to find out what.

The only photo of Lenny is completely out of focus. So when Nick spots a man in a long coat, a hat and gloves watching them across Brompton Cemetery, his face just a blur, things get very odd indeed. If Lenny's alive, who's in the grave?

Nick tells the story and there's a gag in almost every line. Tim gets the client's name wrong every single time (Carver, Starter, Carpark). When they visit the poor steamroller driver, he can't stop himself making puns about crushing and squashing, with disastrous results.

Meanwhile Nick is the one noticing things. A charity worth millions run from rooms above a shabby café. A birthday note that doesn't quite add up. Your reader will probably love spotting things before the adults do, just like Nick.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The deaths here are played for laughs, but there's more than one. A neighbour describes blood all over the road after the steamroller. Later an old balloon-seller is found stabbed in his circus caravan, and the circus performers chase Tim and Nick across the park thinking Tim did it.

Carter drinks whisky from breakfast onwards and smokes constantly. There's some mild swearing. There are also jokes about a hospital for the "hopelessly insane" that sound very dated now.

A child who takes crime stories to heart might find that a lot. If your reader likes their danger daft and their detectives hopeless, it's a real treat.

What to read next

If they haven't met the brothers yet, The Falcon's Malteser is their very first case. A nervous little man leaves a rattling brown envelope on Tim's desk, pays two hundred pounds to have it kept safe and won't say what's inside.