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Junior
Doubleday
Hardback £10.99
ISBN: 038560629X
Reviewed by Dennis Hamley
[Armadillo 6.2 Summer 2004]
Marvellous news. The Pure Dead" trilogy isnt over after all. Not surprisingly, as the final book started the story of the Chronostone which could run and run, so convoluted are its implications and ripe its possibilities. Isagoth, defence minister of Hell, is charged by the Boss to bring back the lost Chronostone which lies hidden and unsuspected somewhere in Strega Schloss. While the family is away, Isagoth tricks his way into the castle, which Latch the butler is looking after. Soon Latch is in the local hospital with amnesia and smelling of sulphur. Luciano advertises for a replacement butler and the mysterious Imlach, who is far from what he seems, arrives and is at once adored by Pandora.
The whole familiar cast of the Strega-Borgia family and its extraordinary dependents both human and mythical, watched over unobtrusively by Mrs Flora Maclachlan, Nanny with unsuspected powers, is thus involved to the hilt. Ffup the dragon is awaiting her marriage to the Sleeper, monster denizen of the Loch, and the wedding preparations are mixed up hilariously with the Chronostones progress: we find that the Mona Lisas smile is really the work of Damp who used Leonardo da Vincis paintbrush to hide the rotting stumps in her mouth the sort of thing which is only to be expected in these books. Everyone contributes materially to this complicated story which arrows its way crazily yet logically to the question mark which presages the next book in the series. It cant come soon enough for me because by now Im a devotee.