The Carmody Casebooks

"A cracker ...Utterly convincing". (Philip Pullman). On a bitterly cold winter's night in 1900, a young boy disappears without trace from the forest near his village.

The man he was with claims he was snatched by angels. Forty years later, Corporal Jack Carmody is sent to investigate reports of mysterious lights above the village. The locals suspect German bombers overhead, but Carmody knows there's something far more intriguing going on.

And when a terrified boy appears in the graveyard, convinced it's the year 1900, it's up to Carmody and his boss - the charismatic Captain Holloway - to uncover the truth. But Tom won't be the first child to mysteriously return from an otherworldly experience. Across the English Channel in Occupied France, a girl thought to be long-drowned is pulled from the water in a fishing net - and when Tom begins to have strange visions, it's clear the two are connected in ways no one could have imagined.

IAN BECK has worked as a freelance illustrator for many years (including such notable artwork as the record cover for Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album). Ian turned to writing and illustrating children's books when his own children were born.