Double Trouble at the Dead Zoo by Alan Nolan

Dublin, 1859

Bram: Boy seeking adventure (and things to write about)

Molly: Part-time sneak thief and full-time Dublin legend!

When Bram and his best pal Molly meet a lonely boy called Sanjit in Dublin’s Natural History Museum, they can see he needs some friends. So they, along with Molly’s gang, The Sackville Street Spooks, take him under their wing.

Sanjit tells them the tale of the dread (and very dead) pirate, Captain Lamprey and his links to the Museum. Soon the new shipmates find themselves outwitting vagabonds and villains, hot on the trail of a mysterious long-lost treasure … the Rajapur Ruby!

But little do they know that not everyone they come across is who they claim to be!

Where CAN that ruby be?

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Dear Alan,

How dare you write something so clever and funny? I read (part of) this in work and kept giggling out loud! (I should have learned after the first one, really, but that's not the point.) Why would you put so many references and injokes in there? I saw the ship and the reference to a scifi franchise and a tiny grumpy writer and probably lots of others I'm not clever enough to recognise! (Did you know there is currently a ship sailing under that name? She seems to be mostly in Asia, sadly.)

I bet the Dead Zoo is looking forward to a sea of extra visitors, even with your disclaimer at the end. (Hopefully someone there has a stack of copies waiting for you to sign?) I know I'll be going at some point, and I might even visit the Long Library - but hopefully I will not be buried alive with only the skeleton of a pirate to keep me company!

I can't wait to see what Molly and Bram and all their friends get up to next and what historical figures they bump into - did you know these books are a bit educational or was that an accident? Hopefully, I'll have learned by then not to read it in work, so there won't be any trouble.*

From (what I hope is) the second best children's book shop in Ireland.

* I will almost certainly not have learned.

Double Trouble at the Dead Zoo officially publishes on the 14th of August but is available now in most bookshops. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.