Necropolis

My rip rollicking ride through children’s adventure stories continues with the fantastic Necropolis by Anthony Horowitz. It was a bit weird at first, I haven’t read any Horowitz before and there was something about the way how he writes really reminded me of the way how I write. I am in no way putting myself in Horowitz’s league here, I’m still nowhere near, but it was rather useful reading something that read like me on an extremely impossibly good day, as I can compare what I’m writing now and spot the differences, so it’s given me a better idea what to work on now.

As for the story itself, besides being an excellent tutorial in the genre I wish to work in, Necropolis is the fourth book of the Power of Five series. The Power of Five series describes the discovery of The Gatekeepers, five teenagers that have lived before, who had in the past, many thousands of years ago, defeated the evil Old Ones. The Old Ones are back and The Gatekeepers must defeat them. In book four (which is perfectly readable, even without reading the first three books as Horowitz uses a number of devices to remind readers of what has gone on in the previous books), The Gatekeepers discover the fifth gatekeeper, Scarlett, a fifteen year old private school girl in London, however The Old Ones discover her at the same time and she is lured into a trap in Hong Kong. 

There are many great set piece scenes in this book, the scene as Scarlett escapes across the roof tops and then the scene as Matt (one of the other gatekeepers) stumbles through a dying Hong Kong in particular brilliant stuff, I can really see why Horowitz can get boys who may not be particularly interested in reading, reading.