We met Tom Afflick in Crow Boy when he suffered a time slip while visiting Mary King's Close and went back to the time of a plague in Edinburgh. He hasn't settled back comfortably into daily life and is haunted by memories so persuades his mum to let him revisit Mary King's Close. But the Close holds no answers and when visiting The National Museum he falls and strikes his head, once again causing a time slip.
This time he finds himself in 1828 and seeks lodgings in Tanner's Close after befriending Jamie, a vagrant. He survives by doing odd jobs for Billy and Will, a couple of Irish chaps who have offered him a roof but keeps slipping to alternative pasts and futures as he waits to return to his own future. But despite the danger he is in in 1828 (and there is plenty!) he is also being pursued across time by one of the characters from his time in Mary King's Close - and it's not to wish him well!! And once again Tom develops an affection for one of the girls he meets in history but the word 'love' is not used, which will please the boys. Poor old Tom certainly knows how to go for impossible friendships.
Who hasn't dreamed of going back in time and changing or accounting for a little bit of history? Well Tom creates such a paradox in this story and it's marvellously done. In fact is it 2 paradoxes?
Another excellent story from Philip Caveney and this one is even better than Crow Boy as there is even more action but just as much history. Aimed at 9 and older this will appeal to both girls and boys. I thoroughly enjoyed this one as much as Crow Boy. If you haven't read Crow Boy then be warned that there are spoilers in this one - so get a copy of Crow Boy.
Publisher - Fledgling Press
Genre - Children's, historic, thriller
Buy Seventeen Coffins
from Amazon
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