Malice in Underland

Malice Morbid Malign is a bit of a misfit in the Malign family - mischief is their business and they take mayhem-making very seriously. They hate books, hate bathing and especially hate being kind and helpful - all the things which Malice adores. The Malign family are from Underland - home of sorcery, spooks and all manner of skulduggery but live in Topside, tasked with tormenting unsuspecting Topside families as often and in as ghastly a fashion as they can through their business, the Malign Haunting Agency.

Malice tries her hardest to keep out of her parents' ghastly goings-on but when 'grandad-ghosts' start disappearing, including her own beloved, poker-playing grandad, she has little choice but to get involved. Partnering up with the black sheep of the family, Uncle Vexatious, and her best friend Seth, Malign suspects her parents are behind the skulduggery but must travel to the darkest depths of Underland with its resident ghosts and ghouls to solve the dastardly crime and return the grandad-ghosts safely home.

Quirky, wildly imaginative and very, very funny, this brilliantly bonkers book is an absolute joy to read. The fun the author had in the writing of it shines through every scene. The wordplay in the character and shop names and the hilariously funny puns form a huge part of the humour alongside the larger-than-life, almost Dickensian characters like Belladonna, owner of the Vengeful Brew Tearoom with its often revolting food offerings and the wily witches in their Be-Careful-What-You-Wish-For Emporium. Fun bonus content at the back of the book offers character sketches, fact files and a shopping guide to Underland.

Spooky, spiky, eery illustrations from Hannah Peck add their own visual jokes to the humour and bring this thoroughly modern, gothic adventure brilliantly to life.

There's an endless fascination in reading about worlds running parallel to our own and Underland is an excellent addition to the otherworldly, though thoroughly believable, cannon. Imagine Nancy Drew or Pippi Longstocking living with the Addams Family in Wonderland and you've got an idea of the delights in store.

The real star though is Malice herself - a heroine who never quite feels she fits in but finds out in the end that she's far better being different and just being herself. She finds friends who appreciate her special abilities and adore her oddities. Above all, she's strong, completely relatable and never needs to be loud to be great.

Malice in Underland is simply perfect for Halloween or anytime reading and would work brilliantly read aloud. Malice's many fans will be delighted to know there's another guess-whodunnit already written and rumours of a third adventure brewing too.

For more gruesome horror with the same humour and heart, try The Beast and the Bethany by Jack Meggitt-Phillips. Ghostly goings-on of an altogether creepier kind can be found in another debut novel, The Haunting of Aveline Jones by Phil Hickes. There are more ghostly crimes to be solved in Winterbourne Home for Vengeance and Valour by Ally Carter. Helena Duggan's A Place Called Perfect trilogy offers up some seriously sinister happenings while Catherine Fisher's Clockwork Crow provides more Gothic magic and mystery set in Victorian times.

304 pages / Ages 8+ / Reviewed by Eileen Armstrong, school librarian

Suggested Reading Age 9+