The Gates: A Samuel Johnson Adventure: 1 - Tapa dura

'Brilliant. I loved every word of it. John has found a voice that compares favourably with Stephen King and Monty Python which is not an easy trick. The Gates is delightfully horrific and hilarious and will create legions of fans among the living and undead, who will be bloodthirsty for more.' -- Eoin Colfer 'Destined to be another runaway success appealing to both young adults and their parent alike.' -- Sunday Independent 'Incredibly enjoyable.' -- FHM 'A demonic, darkly comic tale ... satisfyingly peppered with science, history and amusing footnotes on everything from St Thomas Aquinas to quantum theory, and will go down well with readers of Eoin Colfer and Lemony Snicket.' -- Daily Telegraph

A strange novel for strange young people. Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Hallowe'en. 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 Satanism. But it just happens to coincide with a malfunction in the Large Hadron Collider that creates a gap in the universe. A gap in which there is a pair of enormous gates. The gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out ...Can Samuel persuade anyone to take this seriously? Can he harness the power of science to save the world as we know it?