Hiding Places

'The enemy chiefs were whispering together. Cuthbert saw them from the fortress. Something suspicious was going on. And now Cuthbert had these new people to watch. They might turn out to be the enemies of the Lands as well...' This is how this first novel from a talented newcomer begins. When a new girl, Angela, moves in next door, Cuthbert rather reluctantly recruits her as a fellow 'guard' to defend the Lands (the overgrown expanses of their joint back gardens), now perhaps also under threat from Angela's neat and tidy parents who consider them be in 'such a state.' Dowley's depiction of Cuthbert's powerful fantasy world with its fortress, secret tunnel, messengers and prowlers, into which Angela is drawn (and from which she greatly benefits) is convincingly presented. So strong is it, indeed, that it engenders respect, and finally acceptance, from Angela's parents for undergrowth and untidyness. The novel suffers, as first novels often do, from its rather conventional plot (villains try to burn down an adjacent warehouse, thus threatening the Lands) and there is, in Angela, the old fashioned gender stereotype soppy girl. Yet, a writer who can draw the reader into the landscape of a child's imaginative world as convincingly as Dowley, is an author to look out for.