Mariah Mundi And The Ghost Diamonds, GP Taylor (Faber and Faber, £9.99)

11:09am Saturday 6th September 2008

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LIFE is never dull for teenage orphan cum investigator Mariah Mundi while he is living in the Prince Regent Hotel.

Catastrophe strikes when three visitors spontaneously combust at a hotel party, including the grand Baron Hoetzendorf, who publicly catches fire and explodes.

When hotel owner Captain Charity is arrested on suspicion of murder, Mariah and his friend, Sacha, decide to seek out the truth to save both the captain and the hotel, encountering villains, murderers and mysteries along the way.

Mariah Mundi And The Ghost Diamonds is the second book in the Mariah Mundi trilogy, and contains as much adventure and dark details as the first.

Descriptions of dark, eerie alleyways, smoke-filled pubs and aromas of dead fish, lamp oil and gunpowder bring a Victorian Scarborough to life and keep you reading until the end.

This time, Sacha is kidnapped and Mariah survives a brush with a knifeman, hides in a grave and is dug out by robbers who mistake him for a ghost and runs through a roaring, snarling tunnel of fire.

Does he work out the mystery behind the masked man seen prowling the streets at night, and why the richest man in the world is so interested in the hotel?

I’m not telling you. Read it and find out.