Boy battles sinister shadows of madness to save father

The Lunatic's Curse By F. E. Higgins Published by MacMillan Children's Books ISBN 978 0 53232 8

It's convenient when the title of a book tells you exactly what you are going to read, and a novel called The Lunatic's Curse can only mean one thing. This is going to deliver a few shivers and thrills. With her first three novels set in the Sinister City, the reclusive F. E. Higgins delivered a trio of thrillers with a good helping of the gruesome. The Lunatic's Curse is another deliciously macabre, and at times downright gory, trip into the shadows for readers who like to ride the literary ghost train.

In the first three novels of the series, Tales from the Sinister City, Higgins crafted the spooky municipality of Urbs Umida with gruesome glee. Anything nasty could happen here, and it did. We now move to the neighbouring town of Opum Oppidulum, where things are not much better.

Opum Oppidulum lies on the banks of the deep, black Lake Beluarum, said to be the home of a hideous monster. In the middle of the lake is Droprock Island, on which perches an inescapable asylum. Once a patient is declared insane and incarcerated in Droprock Asylum, it's goodbye to the world outside. The asylum is a sinister prison from which nobody is ever released.

Geography plays a big part in Higgins' stories: dark hills, cruel cities where evil lurks under leaden skies, freezing lakes and now a shadowy lunatic asylum on a remote island. Opum Oppidulum and its surroundings are seriously unpleasant places to live.

Twelve-year-old Rex Grammaticus lives with his father, a talented engineer and designer, in a mansion on the banks of the lake. Rex can see the asylum from his bedroom. Recently, Grammaticus has remarried - and Rex and his stepmother Acantha do not get on. It's obvious to Rex that Acantha has bewitched his father just to get his fortune, and the tension comes to a terrible head one night.