Malamander
by Thomas Taylor
Candlewick Press, 2019
290 pages
Middle-Grade
Malamander is exactly the kind of light-hearted adventure I needed to break out of the ennui of the pandemic! A gill-man is on the loose, but he’s only dangerous if you try to touch his egg, which he lays (or regurgitates, to be more precise,) once a year on Midwinter as it calls its lonely song for its mate… an egg that grants wishes to any who possess it.
Herbie Lemon is the Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel in the coastal town of Eerie-On-Sea. One night a mysterious girl shows up pursued by a huge, weathered sea dog with a boat hook for a hand! Violet Parma is searching for her parents, who disappeared years ago from the shore nearby. She has no idea why the maniac is out to get her, but Herbie is drawn, hook, line, and sinker, into the mystery.
The two must avoid the scrutiny of Herbie’s boss, Mr. Mollusc, but as things unravel, Lady Kraken, the owner of the hotel, who pays Herbie with the antique trinkets left behind by guests generations ago, ends up asking her Lost-and-Founder for intel about the goings on in the village. There are places she cannot see with her Camera Obscura at the top of the hotel. Her wealth came from Captain Kraken, her grandfather, who lost his crew to the enraged malamander, leaving the hulk of his great ship half sunk in the bay.
As Midwinter’s Eve approaches, everyone in town seems to be making a play for the egg, and we are never sure who to trust: Sebastian Eels, a pompous local author and expert on the malamander; Dr. Thalassi who runs a museum that would love to display the egg; Mrs. Fossil, a beachcomber and mudlark who knew Violet’s parents; and Jenny Hanniver, who runs a bookshop with a magical clockwork monkey mermaid that acts as an oracle for the book each customer needs.
Violet receives a book about the malamander, though she only really wants a clue as to what happened to her mother and father and whether they might still be alive. Her father wrote a book on the malamander himself, they learn, but the page revealing its one weakness has been torn out of the manuscript (that they steal from Eels). When the beast lays its egg, it becomes vulnerable. Will it meet its end this year?
The book’s sequel, Gargantis is already out, with Book 3: Shadowghast on the way, and I can’t wait to get my hands on them. The story of The Malamander is as fun as the book cover looks. It’s a quick read and just the mystery-adventure to cheer up a reader who’s too withdrawn for one more day of remote learning.