Bonebreaker

It is the year 34 AD and Bethan, the blind soothsayer of the settlement in the marshes, foretells an attack by the dreaded Vikings, led by the fearsome warrior nicknamed "The Bonebreaker".

The only people who take her prophecy seriously are her son, Wilfrid, and his closest friends, Dustan and Inga. Unfortunately, they can do little when the truly ferocious attack comes, wiping out the entire population. All Bethan can do is curse The Bonebreaker, condemning him to a life of ghostly wanderings in the marshes.

Enter young Billy. The year is now 2006. Billy goes on holidays with his best friend's family to a an old windmill in East Anglia. It becomes clear from a shared feeling of déja vu and Billy's strange automatic drawings that he is the lad to put an end to The Bonemaker's haunting of the marshes.

This is a rollicking, spine-tingling action tale. Finely tuned and with all the components in place, one spooky encounter after another leads us to a terrifying climax that will have readers on tenterhooks because it is all so believable.

The illustrations by Simon Murray greatly enrich the narrative with their suggestion of the fading wall paintings that still survive in remote pre-Reformation churches.

Highly recommended.

Bonebreaker. By Peter J Murray. Illustrated by Simon Murray. Hodder €8.95. Age 10 plus