Monsters

Set in Fowey, a Cornish seaside town that looks picture-perfect but hides darker currents, this darkly funny novel follows two twelve-year-olds who are not the sort of company anyone would want. When a young woman's body turns up in a fishing boat's nets, the town is appalled. One girl is not. Thrilled by the killing, she sets out to question residents in her own private inquiry, though she finds the work lonely.

Her hunt gains a partner when Miles Giffard, an equally strange boy, moves to Fowey with his mother. Together they investigate, and they also stage games that reenact the murders, which they insist are only for fun. The book is a wicked portrait of two children whose fascination with death grows more unsettling as they go.