Author Darrell Pitt is obviously a fan of earlier adventure fiction, and adapts aspects of it here. In a steampunk version of London, detective Ignatius Doyle becomes guardian to young Jack Mason, orphaned after his trapeze-act parents die in an accident.
Base is Doyle's 221 Bee St apartment, which is stuffed full of the eccentric detective's collected paraphernalia, and also home to Bertha, a pet tarantula.
Now Pitt really gets to work: a secret society possessing superior technological knowledge, Nazis, atom bombs, 200-mile-high (yes, mile) metrotowers in which people can spend their entire lives, all feature.
Ages 12+.
- By René Nol
