John, Connolly. Samuel Johnson. #bk. 1

Read by Jonathan Cake

Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween. Which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Avenue. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld. But when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe. A gap which holds a pair of enormous gates-the gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out… Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith and love to save the world as we know it? Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy. It is about a quirky and eccentric boy who is impossible not to love, and the unlikely cast of characters who give him the strength to stand up to a demonic power. Like Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Gates manages to recreate for grownups that magical and scary world of childhood that we've all left behind but so love to visit

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