Death and Douglas {Book Review}

I received a copy of “Death and Douglas ” ($16.99 value) in exchange for this promotion. Any opinions expressed here are honest and my own. 

Twelve-year-old Douglas Mortimer touched his first corpse at age four and sleeps above a morgue.  That’s just life when your family’s in the death business.  His parents run the Mortimer Family Funeral Home, so Douglas knows how to deal with death.  He’s good at it.  Better than most adults, really.  Until something strange happens that changes everything.

In the small, quiet New England town of Cowlmouth, an incredibly unusual death is brought through the doors of his home sweet funeral home – a murder victim…with a message.  And then more to follow.

On the cusp of Halloween, a serial killer has come to Cowlmouth and is leaving strange clues behind.

But Douglas and his friends are determined to solve the secret behind the murders, before one of them becomes the next victim.

Review

Death and Douglas is geared towards middle schoolers (ages 8-12).  It’s sure a great read that keeps you on the edge of your seat.  For some young timid readers, I’d wait until they were a bit older for this one, but for those kiddos loving a good suspenseful book with thrills…this is it.  It also was a quick read, but has a total of 364 pages which a quite a few to get thru, but it goes smooth.

For this being Ocker’s first children’s book, he did a good job keeping the details at a middle school level, but I also feel this book would appeal to adults too.

There are just enough characters to remember and not be confused in the story line and the character descriptions are clean and fun.

Great Holiday Gift idea for those middle readers on your list.  Death and Douglas can be purchased at Amazon and Barnes & Nobles or anywhere books are sold.

About the Author

W. Ocker is the Edgar Award-winning author of Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe. His work has appeared in The Guardian, the Boston Globe, CNN, the Atlantic, and other places people stick writing. He’s from Maryland but has lived in New Hampshire since 2008. This is his first book for children. Visit him at http://www.oddthingsiveseen.com