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Jack doesn’t know what he’s got himself into. One minute he and his best friend Charlie were up in Chinatown having crispy duck with Charlie’s dad (and Jack was having to listen to Charlie shouting at his dad for leaving his mum) - then next minute they were in a mysterious room above a theatre, with some of the strangest characters they’d ever encountered. And they were about to take The Test… and something very very weird was about to begin. The Test transformed Charlie - leaving him with the distinctive markings of the Black Tattoo - and with a temper that seemed out of control. The boys’ meeting with Esme, a young girl with the most impressive martial arts skills this side of Bruce Lee, her huge and hairy father Raymond, and the mysterious Nick seemed to have swept Charlie and Jack into a world they had no idea existed. And it was only going to get stranger… This epic tale of good and evil, demons and hell, vomiting bats and huge battles marks the debut of an incredible new talent for children’s books. Drawing on influences such as comic books, computer games and Eastern martial arts, The Black Tattoo is a book no self-respecting teenage boy will want to miss.
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Jack doesn’t know what he’s got himself into. One minute he and his best friend Charlie were up in Chinatown having crispy duck with Charlie’s dad (and Jack was having to listen to Charlie shouting at his dad for leaving his mum) - then next minute they were in a mysterious room above a theatre, with some of the strangest characters they’d ever encountered. And they were about to take The Test… and something very very weird was about to begin. The Test transformed Charlie - leaving him with the distinctive markings of the Black Tattoo - and with a temper that seemed out of control. The boys’ meeting with Esme, a young girl with the most impressive martial arts skills this side of Bruce Lee, her huge and hairy father Raymond, and the mysterious Nick seemed to have swept Charlie and Jack into a world they had no idea existed. And it was only going to get stranger… This epic tale of good and evil, demons and hell, vomiting bats and huge battles marks the debut of an incredible new talent for children’s books. Drawing on influences such as comic books, computer games and Eastern martial arts, The Black Tattoo is a book no self-respecting teenage boy will want to miss.
I used to work with the author of The Black Tattoo, Sam Enthoven, in a London bookshop. He used to regale me with tales of the obscure zombie films and Hong Kong martial arts stars that he was obsessed with. I now see this was all research for his terrific debut novel, which is stuffed full of kung-fu fighters, a varied cast of demons, flying sharks and a wonderful vision of hell as a vast empire existing on the back of a sleeping dragon. Amidst this riot of imagination we follow the story of three very realistically drawn young teens and their battle with a tricky and powerful demon that possesses one of them and uses him to try to destroy the universe.
It’s an exciting ride with lashings of dark humour and fantastical twists and turns that should appeal to all lovers of good fantasy and adventure. It’s like The Matrix crossed with Buffy crossed with Supernatural, but with demonic gladiators and vomiting bats!
Paul Bowman is from Readings Carlton