death or ice cream

Larkin Mills is no ordinary town. It's a place of contradictions and enigma, of secrets and mysteries. A place with an exquisite ice cream parlor, and an awful lot of death. An extraordinary mystery in Larkin Mills is beginning to take shape. First we meet the apparently healthy Albert Dance, although he's always been called a sickly child, and he's been booked into Larkin Mills' Hospital for Specially Ill Children. Then there's his neighbor, Ivor, who observes strange goings-on, and begins his own investigations into why his uncle disappeared all those years ago. Next we meet Young Olive, who is given a battered accordion by her father, and unwittingly strikes a dreadful deal with an instrument repair man. Make sure you keep an eye on Mr. Morricone, the town ice cream seller, who has lines snaking around the block for his legendary ice cream flavors Summer Fruits Suicide and The Christmas Massacre. And Mr. Milkwell, the undertaker, who has some very dodgy secrets locked up in his hearse. Because if you can piece together what all these strange folks have to do with one another—well, you'll have begun to unlock the dark secrets that keep the little world of Larkin Mills spinning.

Gareth P. Jones won the Blue Peter Book of the Year Prize 2012 for The Considine Curse, and The Case of the Missing Cats was nominated for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. He is also the author ofThe Thornthwaite Inheritance, which won seven children's book awards, Constable & Toop, andThe Society of Thirteen.