Age 14+

‘My life might have been so different had I not been known as the girl whose grandmother exploded.’ So begins Grant’s compelling debut about Pia, a 10 year old in a small German town where girls are disappearing. Ostracised by schoolmates, Pia and Stefan, a fellow outcast, try to solve the mystery of the abductions. The novel is enriched by spooky stories told by an old man who becomes the children’s confidant, by the conflict in Pia’s own half-English family, by a cleverly drawn cast including the witchy town gossip and the local teenage delinquent, and by a gothically creepy denouement. Lightness of touch, neatness of phrase and talent for observation enliven the darkness of the material: appalling crimes and characters who are accidentally burnt to death. Even if the plot ultimately seems somewhat unlikely, the reader is swept along by a need to know and by Pia’s engaging and innocent narrative voice, rather as the narrator of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time leavens a tragic story. This has similar crossover appeal. For something so chilling, it is terrific entertainment (Puffin £6.99)

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