The Black Tattoo
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
An ancient evil has been unleashed. Now one boy’s rage could destroy us all.
“Sam Enthoven’s clearly loving telling this story and his energy creeps into the words on every page.”—The Guardian
Jack doesn’t know what he’s got himself into. One minute he and his best friend Charlie were in Chinatown having crispy duck with Charlie’s dad, then suddenly they were in a mysteries room above a theatre, with some of the strangest characters they’d ever encountered. And they were about to take the test . . .
The test transformed Charlie—leaving him with the distinctive markings of the Black Tattoo. 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 weirder . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lee possesses some of the weary working-class grandeur of Michael Caine, shading his reading of Enthoven's debut fantasy novel set in London and the underworld with the occasional broad mannerism, and raising his voice to a goblet-shattering screech for emphasis. Lee is innovative in his voicings, though; he provides some of the slinkier, more seductive characters in Enthoven's book with a baritone boom that will rumble speakers, and other characters banter agreeably with a delicate chirp. This tale of two boys swept up in an ancient secret mingles the magical and the mundane, and Lee superbly handles both elements of the book, comfortably portraying British boys and age-old demons. His performance summons the grandeur of both London and Hell itself, and more than adequately fleshes out Enthoven's characters in all their multifariousness. Lee is a narrator to watch. Ages 9-up.
