The Eyeball Collector
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
When his butterfly-collector father is swindled to within an inch of his life, a vengeful Hector leaves the city of Urbs Umida in pursuit of a fiendish villain with a glass eye. The trail leads to Withypitts Hall, a forbidding Gothic mansion as warped as its inhabitants and their secret schemes. Soon Hector finds himself embroiled in mysterious deeds more poisonous than his worst imaginings, but every twist and turn brings him closer to his revenge . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Higgins's witty "polyquel" to The Black Book of Secrets and The Bone Magician (it "contains elements from both stories as well as mysteries all of its own," per her postscript), young Hector finds himself homeless and penniless after his father is blackmailed and disgraced. When his father dies of heartbreak, Hector seeks revenge against the man who ruined them. The titular villain, Gulliver Truepin, is not as gruesome as his nickname suggests: he's a one-eyed con artist who wants a fake eyeball each with a different jewel at the center for each day of the week. Through a series of coincidences, both characters end up at Withypitts Hall, under the cruel watch of Lady Mandible. As Hector plots vengeance and Truepin works out yet another scheme, they both get caught up in Mandible's own plotting, the assorted plans all colliding on the night of an extravagant feast. Higgins fills her book with deliciously nasty bits (Mandible paints using blood leeched from a servant), riddles and a Dickensian atmosphere that's both stark and delightful. Some familiar faces appear, but this story works beautifully on its own. Ages 10 14.
