The Secret of the Underground Room: A Johnny Dixon, Professor Childermass Book

I've been taking my time with the wife's Bellairs' books because I didn't really want to run out of them. Time and again I've devoured a favourite author far too quickly and have been left with nothing to go back to... so it's been a while since I last dabbled with some Bellairs. This is a good

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one, as are pretty much all of them actually, only marred by a slightly under developed plot. It felt like there was one or two set pieces almost missing from the book and the final denouement (rather wonderfully on the isle of Lundy) just slightly fizzles out. But there's so many good things to say about it - VERY good portrayal of Britain and Bristol, lovely sense of the UK in the 1950s, nicely judged placing of little British elements like Newcastle Brown Ale and explaining what ground floors are to an American audience... and still the same wonderfully creepy sense of genuine horror that Bellairs always makes his own. Why Bellairs isn't better known in the UK I'll never know... a genuine tragedy

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