Marcus Sedgwick aims for a younger audience with this, the first of five Raven Mysteries books. Instead he gets me.

The ancient Guardian of Otherhand Castle has noticed a threat to the family and servants of the castle - a menacing and noxious tail, that may be connected to a mouth connected to the disappearance of a kitchen maid. Soon he has observed another danger: the castle, which appears to have something of a mind of its own, is flooding. Being a responsible Guardian, he attempts to warn the Otherhands, but this is more difficult than it would initially seem, since the Otherhands are variously, mad, stupid, obsessed with trivialities, conducting gruesome meteorological experiments or accompanied by a dangerous sticky monkey. Even explaining the situation to the one sensible member of the Otherhand clan is not straightforward, because the ancient Guardian is a Raven. Called Edgar.

This immensely entertaining, funny book combines ingredients from every comic-Gothic source that comes to mind, including The Adams Family, Beetlejuice and Araminta Spook with items from numerous more serious Gothic sources such as Gormenghast and one E.A. Poe, mixed together with Sedgwick's own strong Gothic sensibility and baked in a slightly rusty cake tin, rising to form a light and fluffy cake that it is a delight to consume.

It is worth noting that the book deploys illustration more effectively than any other novel with a similar target audience that I can remember. (Admittedly I can remember few.)

I look forward impatiently to the next Mystery as told from the viewpoint of Otherhand's oldest denizen, Edgar the Raven. ( )

‘Rurk!’ I said, expressing my doubts at our plan.
‘Yes, Edgar,’ she said, standing nose to beak, ‘It is exciting, isn’t it? Come on then! Let’s find these tracks.’
Ah well, I thought, I tried.

There are strange things going on at Castle Otherhand. Housemaids seem to go missing, the cellar keeps flooding, and there are mysterious tracks in the rhubarb patch, but none of the inhabitants seem to notice.....except the castle's resident raven - Edgar.

This was a great little story - quite dark but sweet in a gothic sort of way.

I have a soft spot for ravens and the illustrations of Edgar in this one were lovely.

Review originally posted on BookLikes. ( )

Flood and Fang was one of the first books on my kindle to-read list. In a nutshell, Raven (the castle’s resident raven) spots a number of potentially nasty things going on in Otherhand Castle, and tries to draw them to the attention of the weird and wonderful characters who inhabit it.

The ink-washed design of the cover is reflected in the illustrations and motifs by Pete Williamson that punctuate the text. It is visually appealing – a chapter book broken up into small chunks, encouraging readers to go on, as if the narrative wasn’t encouraging enough! I started reading the raven’s story and thought there was a lot of complicated information about the castle and its inhabitants. I wondered at the vocabulary in use (extensive) but realised the pace and the delivery would encourage readers to learn new words and not lose the story. I very soon lost my author-head, and continued in reader-mode, rollicking through a delightful story of gothic daftness, mystery and adventure. The little boxed paragraphs at the start of each chapter seemed to be a quirky extract from a history of the castle, but by halfway I’d realised these were useful clues for the reader, if not an integral part of the plot.

Sedgwick reminds me to use the sort of names that kids love. I wondered how many might look up Spatchcock to find out that it isn’t just a made-up funny word, but an old-fashioned way of cooking game birds – but then I looked it up myself and found it was also “to insert (a phrase, sentence, story, etc) esp. incongruously” both of which suit the owner of the name admirably! I love Valevine’s fear of the use of the Glottal Stop, which, being a mystery to the raven, becomes his catch-all phrase for anything scary!

It’s a story that would be suitable to read aloud to eight years and up, but would engage older children reading to themselves, and probably become one of those well-thumbed books, even on an eReader. In fact, I expect I’ll read it again, it’s such fun. This is the second Marcus Sedgwick book I’ve read, this time for a younger audience, and I loved it just as much. I’m now a confirmed fan. ( )

Precis lagom lättläst bok med fina bilder. Mycket rolig och underhållande.