Overview
It was the morning of Paisley Curtin's sixteenth birthday when she realized her town was doomed. Just one week before, a traveling carnival had rolled into the quiet hillside community of Obidiah's Glenn and right away things began to get weird. The carnival itself was strange enough, with its seedy sideshows and sinister exhibitions, its Room of False Mirrors, its dangerous Gallows Hand game and the monstrous caged creature called the Tom-Geek.
Then parents in the town began to get sick, followed by the teachers, doctors and the sheriff's department. The children of Obidiah's Glenn become suddenly wild, roaming about at night with crazed looks in their eyes. Paisley realizes she had to do something to stop what she saw happening—but there wasn't anyone left in town who seemed to be able to help. So she sends a letter to someone she hoped might listen, someone who would know what to do—a friend of her late sister's from college, a self-styled "girl detective" with a questionable reputation named Judy Drood.
Her only hope is that Judy will arrive in time to save her town—and to prevent her from ending up as yet another exhibit in the dark carnival's Hall of Embalmed Abominations!
The Grave Robber's Daughter is another fast-paced, delirious ride from the author of the critically acclaimed The Chuckling Whatsit ("A masterpiece!" —Rue Morgue Magazine) and marks the return of Judy Drood, Girl Detective, last seen thwarting the murderous plans of a group of demented college professors in Sala's 2005 epic mystery-thriller Mad Night. The Grave Robber's Daughter is filled with Sala's unique blend of horror and whimsy that will please his many fans and new readers alike.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
When Judy Drood's car breaks down outside of Obadiah's Glen, the foul-mouthed Nancy Drew stand-in wanders into town for assistance and gets caught up in a bizarre hallucination brought to life. The town appears deserted save for a group of teenagers gathered inside an old house, an eerie little girl named Nellie Kelley and a small army of ever-grinning, sinister clowns. The answers to the many questions raised by this queer scenario unfolds at a brisk pace, revelations punctuated with fisticuffs, a tentacled sideshow mutant, ghoulish shenanigans in an accursed graveyard and a most unusual potion housed in the bottles of a dank wine cellar. Sala's David Lynchian world possesses the feel of a spooky mystery tale, but his illustrative style echoes a retro children's book, and the visual style adds a friendly yet disturbing quality to the proceedings. Sala (Evil Eye) has always offered something different, and this piece leaves the reader eager for the further exploits of Judy Drood in a world so similar to our own, but with one toe over the line into the Twilight Zone. (Feb.)
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.School Library Journal
Gr 10 & Up - Judy, a young woman with a foul temper and a mouth to match, leaves home precipitously and finds herself in the nightmare of Obadiah's Glen. This tiny town used to attract travelers with its carnival, but the new freeway rerouted traffic and the carnival closed. Judy's first impressions of the hamlet confuse her: no one except for aggressive teenagers, threatening clowns, and a grim little girl seems to be in evidence. Nellie Kelly, the grim little grave robber's daughter, however, turns out to have more power than the unsuspecting passerby might suppose. Fortunately, Judy is not prone to going through life without suspecting every oddity or nuance. Sala's black-and-white drawings are suitably rough and include creepy expressions and arched teenage eyebrows that fill out the narrative's characterizations. Judy's tendency to swear fulsomely is introduced in the first panel, so no one will be surprised later when the going gets tough and her brawn turns out to be as sharp as her vocabulary. This is a tidy little tale of vengeance, corruption, and the scary side of clowns.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information