Beastly Merseyside

Animals have played a vital role in shaping our towns and cities from the earliest settlements. This new series offers a fascinating insight into the oft-forgotten histories of the animals that helped to drive the economy and enrich our culture.

Animals have played a vital role in shaping our towns and cities from the earliest settlements. This new series offers a fascinating insight into the oft-forgotten histories of the animals that helped to drive the economy and enrich our culture.

ULF'S MOST DANGEROUS MISSION YET! Beasts are on the loose in Capitol City, terrifying the citizens, and now there's a call for beasts to be banished for good! Ulf is convinced the evil Baron Marackai is behind it, with his plans to bring back the beast trade - but can he prove it? The future of ALL beasts depends on him…

The second book in this fantastic series. Ulf is an orphaned werewolf who has lived his whole life at Farraway Hall, the headquarters of The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Beasts (RSPCB), a rescue centre for rare and endangered beasts. When an injured sea monster arrives, Ulf uncovers a poisonous mystery and a world of beast poaching in which sea beasts are eaten as delicacies. With the help of Orson the giant, Tiana the fairy and Dr Fielding the RSPCB vet, Ulf must defeat the cruel beast hunter Baron Marackai and stop the Beast Feast. The future of the RSPCB depends on it...

"Grisly and atmospheric…[these] stories feature small worlds of animal amorality in which the sweet taste of revenge leaves no aftertaste of guilt." —Publishers Weekly Nowhere is Patricia Highsmith's affinity for animals more apparent than in The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder, for here she transfers the murderous thoughts and rages most associated with humans onto the animals themselves. You will meet, for example, in "In the Dead of Truffle Season," a truffle-hunting pig who tries to whet his own appetite for a while; or Jumbo in "Chorus Girl's Absolutely Final Performance," a lonely, old circus elephant who decides she's had enough of show business and cruel trainers for one lifetime. In this satirical reprise of Kafka, cats, dogs, and breeding rodents are no longer ordinary beings in the happy home, but actually have the power to destroy the world in which we live.