Paradise Barn by Victor Watson

LAURA CECIL

Literary agent for children's books

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Paradise Barn series by Victor Watson

Age range: 10 to 12

Paradise Barn
* Shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award for outstanding first novel

"Old Miss Morton had found the body. She had been walking her two labradors. Now, whenever Molly saw Miss Morton, she looked carefully at her, imagining there would be a new and special grimness on her face because she had found a dead body. But Miss Morton had always looked grim, even before she had come across the man lying under the elm tree with a bullet-wound in his head."

Nothing used to happen in Great Deeping, but in 1940 the small town in the remote English countryside is full of strangers and evacuees from the London blitz. Then an unknown man is found murdered. While the adults seem to have other things on their minds, Molly and Abigail decide to solve the mystery. Londoner Adam arrives as an evacuee in Molly’s house, and it is his passion for drawing and his interest in art that leads the three friends to discover a link between the murder and a notorious art theft in Paris.

How this connects with Hilda Pritt, the woman pilot with a revolver in her handbag, Cuffey the mysterious lodger who befriends Molly, and Paradise Barn itself is gradually revealed in this tense thriller.

Rights : Laura Cecil

Publishers:
UK : Catnip

The Deeping Secrets
"There was a series of overwhelming explosions, then a thumping of débris as scraps of wood fell heavily onto the truck-bed above their heads. A metal wheel thudded down and buried itself in the grass close by, half a hundredweight of instant death."

When a local train is bombed by enemy aircraft, the people of Great Deeping realise there’s a spy in their midst, which casts a shadow over the community. Molly and her friends distract themselves with a hunt for buried treasure. However, during their search, they find themselves uncomfortably close to a dangerous traitor . . .

Victor Watson's thrilling new novel is published April 2011. A third Paradise Barn mystery is planned for next year.

PRAISE FOR PARADISE BARN:

"Familiar ingredients of Second World War Home Front Fiction are given a fresh, emotionally acute treatment." THE BOOKSELLER

"beautifully written and well-paced" SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

"Well imagined and cleverly plotted...recreates the wartime atmosphere without straying into cliches. Watson's characters come over as vivid and real." Nicholas Tucker, IBBY

Rights : Laura Cecil

Publishers:
UK : Catnip