Death Collector by Justin RichardsReading level: Grades 6-10
This is a fabulous blend of mystery, horror and adventure. The book catches your interest with the opening line, "Four days after his own funeral, Albert Wilkes came home for tea", and keeps it to the very end. When Eddie, a 14-year-old pickpocket, witnesses the "deceased" Albert Wilkes being kidnapped, he becomes swept away in a mystery concerning a mysterious diary entry. Along with George, a 19-year-old assistant at the British Museum, and Liz, an 18 year-old clergyman's daughter, Eddie must solve the mystery horror befalls all of London.
The setting-foggy, Victorian London, is the perfect backdrop for dinosaur like animals, monstrous "humans" and a mad, power hungry industrialist. This is an enjoyable, suspenseful, thrilling adventure.
